Alive Radiant Foods Kale Krunch ‘Original Cheezy Chipotle’
Raw cheese-flavoured kale chips
Pros: Healthier than normal crisps, best packaged version I’ve tried, somewhat cheddar flavoured, great crunch
Cons: Pricey, not much in the bag
I bought this from Prahran Convenience in Melbourne (where I also recently picked up my first ever try of American vegan cheese Teese, which I will review shortly). It was a last minute grab that I saw on the shelf and I am so glad that I decided to get it.
Described on the packet as having a “rich smoky cheddar flavour without the cheese” I was actually quite skeptical. I’ve tried some kale chips before but have never been particularly taken by them, so it was surprising to me how good these tasted. One thing I do always find with the kale chips I’ve eaten is that the majority do end up being tiny little pieces, probably because dried out kale is so delicate. The fragile consistency definitely makes for a good mouth crunch brittleness, but it doesn’t help much when you’re dragging it in a bag of fancy vegan cheese and bottles of kombucha halfway across Melbourne.
They always come with one of those little packets to keep the moisture out, which would otherwise affect their crispness in transit, and usually in resealable plastic packets.
The smokey cheese flavour is of that deep mature cheddar flavour and, while nutritional yeast is obviously an ingredient it isn’t overwhelmingly noochy. It’s also not as heavily salted as some others that I have tried.
The right amount of coated topping — and it all stays stuck to it well, it’s cemented on perfectly. I suppose the coating to leaf ratio is important for the overall flavour and mouth feel.
I then had it with a homemade salad and dressing as an alternative to croutons to add that great crunch. It was awesome.
The salad was a combination of baby spinach, grated carrot, black olives, finely sliced tomato, shallot, mushroom, cucumber, corn, crushed peanuts, sprouted beans, bean shoots, grated vegan cheddar Sheese and finely sliced green apple.
Dressing: Avocado, garlic, salt, pepper, lime juice, butter beans, balsamic vinegar a drop of soy milk and a drop of sesame oil — blend it up. I then stirred finely sliced pickled jalapeno pieces through it. A touch of garlic powder also wouldn’t go amiss.
It’s what my wife calls a “busy” salad — something she isn’t a big fan of but I love uncontrollably (she prefers the beautiful Donna Hay minimalism, whereas I love a minimum of five different colours on my plate). Seeing as we’ve been in a bit of a heatwave, variations of fancy salads is all I’ve been interested in eating lately (with alternating ingredients of red onion, artichoke, other vegan cheeses and beans), but it is nice to have something with a dry crunchy texture to add, so I’m glad to have discovered this.
It can also be bought on iHerb and I would guess in health food stores. I’ve seen them in different flavours from the same brand in the big bucket at the front of Go Vita Southern Cross.
It would obviously keep for a while as it’s air-tight sealed and dried, however even when opened the seal kept it in the exact same state as it was before, so I was pretty chuffed with it. Particularly as I snacked away happily and then put them down somewhere and forgot about them, thinking they’d be stale when I came back.
I then decided it was time to try and make them myself. As you’ll see in my price breakdown below, the cost is pretty horrific per gram and this is one of the more affordable brands.
I didn’t have much time to look up recipes online, so I’m pretty chuffed with how these have turned out. I bought a $2.50 bunch of kale from Woolworths and the rest was already in my cupboard.
Effectively, I cut the kale curly leafy bits from the stems of about a third of the bunch and put them into a bowl. I then sprayed them with canola oil and scooped in about a tablespoon of dijon mustard, two tablespoons of nutritional yeast, salt, pepper and some garlic powder. I stirred them up and then dehydrated them on the highest setting for about one to two hours.
They came out crunchy and beautiful and I served them up with (yet another) busy salad for the crunch. They could have possibly done with another half an hour to really make them crispy, but I actually quite liked them like this.
Next time, I’d probably blend the stir-through flavours together as a coating and I would also add crushed/blended nuts of some description to give it a thicker texture. I wouldn’t mind just adding some of my own dried vegan parmesan cheese to the mix.
But in summary… it’s so easy and cheap! If you don’t own a dehydrator (and you don’t see yourself getting one sometime soon) then I’m told it can go in the oven on the lowest setting for a similar result.
I recently made a second batch using smoked paprika, nooch, salt, pepper and spray canola oil and it was seriously awesome.
The price
At around $7 for 63 grams, it’s pretty expensive. While I’ve seen some exceed the $10 mark, having now made my own I think that just from a cost perspective it’s a difficult outlay to justify.
The ingredients
Organic kale, red bell peppers, organic cashews, organic lemon juice, nutritional yeast, sea salt and organic chia seeds.
(Which is effectively how you make a cashew cheese anyway.)
The nutritional value
They’re raw, gluten free, soy free and include organic ingredients, despite this they still have quite a bit of fat in them from the nuts, but you eat them as a replacement snack food so they’re definitely the healthier option.
