When I first heard of nutritional yeast, I was making a tofu breakfast burrito from another blogger’s recipe. I skipped over the yeast (since that sounded kinda odd, putting yeast in a burrito) and went on with the recipe.
Later, I looked into nutritional yeast and found that nutritional yeast is amazing. Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast (no rising here) that is packed with animo acids (which are great for muscle growth and repair, for your fitness junkies), essential vitamins and minerals like B12, and it has a great nutty cheesy taste. You can find it at natural food grocery stores like Sprouts and of course, Whole Foods.
Vegans are avid users of nutritional yeast as a replacement for cheese, but I don’t think they should have all the fun. I added the yeast to one of my favorite snacks, kale chips, to mimic the other cheesy kale chips at the grocery store, but for a fraction of the price.
Ingredients
- 2 bunches of kale, rinsed and dried
- olive oil
- salt, to taste
- nutritional yeast, for sprinkling
- red pepper flakes (if you like heat, if not, omit)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350.
Destem the kale and discard the stems. Rough chop the kale into chip size pieces.
Transfer to a large bowl. Start with about 2 teaspoons of olive oil and toss to coat in the bowl. The leaves should be lightly coated. If they're not yet, add more depending on the amount of leaves you have. Too much olive oil and they won't crisp up.
Add salt, red pepper flakes, and a 1/3 cup nutritional yeast. Stir to combine.
On parchment paper lined baking sheets, lay out the kale chips in one layer. Keep them from overlapping so they cook evenly.
Sprinkle more nutritional yeast on top and bake for 12 minutes.
Bake in batches until all of the kale chips are baked and enjoy.