You know how I’m sometimes bedazzled by the food that my hands create? Well, that’s not entirely true since my hands follow inspirations and lessons from my friends, like a certain nutritionist-food-monger Anna Kelles. This is one of those smack-dab delicious recipes. Forget about the fact that these pesto-tahini soaked Kale Chips are healthy – these are pure addiction! The only catch: you will need a food dehydrator for this recipe (I have anOpen Country 700 Watt Dehydrator).
If you’d like to give this recipe a shot in the oven, please send your results to emmavrfrisch@gmail.com in exchange for an exclusive non-dehydrated recipe!

Print
Cheesy Pesto Tahini Kale Chips
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 quart jar; 1 large ziplock bag
- Yeast – 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- Sunflower seed pesto – 1/4 cup
- Tahini – 1/4 cup
- Honey – 1/4 cup
- Lemon – 1/2 lemon, freshly squeezed
- Tomato paste – 1 teaspoon
- Chili flakes (optional) – dried chili flakes
- Kale or Collard greens – 2 large bunches of kale or collard greens, or both!
- A bit about the products in this recipe:
- Nutritional yeast: While I don’t consider nutritional yeast to suffice for cheese in any way, this product is a vegan’s cheesy go-to. It adds a great flavor to popcorn too, and can be found in the natural foods section of your grocery store.
- Tahini is sesame butter, and can be found in your supermarket’s natural foods section or next to the peanut butter
- Tomato paste: Buy tomato paste in a tube, as opposed to a jar. It will keep indefinitely in a tube, but will mold quickly in a jar. Tomato paste is super-concentrated tomatoes – a little bit goes a long way. Look for a brand that contains one ingredient: tomatoes.
- Dried chilis: To dry fresh chilis, hang them on a ribbon with safety pins. They will dry out and store indefinitely. Flake off some skin or seeds for extra heat when cooking.
- Defrost a frozen batch of pesto for 30 minutes prior to cooking, or, whip up a fresh batch. (Roasted Sunflower Seed Pesto)
- In a blender or food processor, mix all of the ingredients except for the kale and/or collards.
- Strip the kale and/or collard leaves from the stems and tear into 1-inch long trips. Put half the leaves in a large mixing bowl.
- Add half the pesto sauce to the bowl and massage it into the greens with your hands, fully coating each leaf as much as possible.
- Repeat with the remaining greens and pesto sauce.
- Spread the kale chips evenly on the dehydrator racks.
- Dehydrate at 145 degrees for about 3 hours, rotating the racks from top to bottom once.
- Note: I like the separate the kale and collards on the racks, because the collards take a bit longer to get crispy.
- Store your chippies in an airtight jar, and hide form your housemates, husband or children immediately.