My ORIGINAL Vegan No-Bake Habanero Kale Chips are an easy and healthy dehydrator recipe made with only 6 clean, real food ingredients. They're a spicy plant-based snack that's a perfect replacement for store-bought chips and they can be prepared in under 10 minutes!
"Habanero Kale Chips" was originally created, photographed, and published on February 25, 2014 by Karielyn Tillman of The Healthy Family and Home™ and not OneGreenPlanet.
Table of Contents
Here's Why This Recipe Works
My top 3 favorite reasons:
- 100% Raw with A Dehydrator - No Baking or Oven Needed
- Can Be Prepared in Under 10 Minutes
- Made With Clean Real Food Ingredients
You can feel good about making my healthy, plant-based recipe because it's raw, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, oil-free, no-bake, paleo-friendly, and Medical Medium® Compliant.
"Feel good about what you eat..."
- Karielyn Tillman
Ingredients
Here are the clean, real food ingredients I used to make this original recipe. Try to use organic if possible.
- Kale
- Cashews
- Lemon Juice
- Habanero Peppers
- Filtered/Purified Water
- Himalayan Pink Salt
That's it!
Karielyn's Expert Tips + Ingredient Substitutions
Here are some of my expert tips to make this recipe perfectly:
Kale: You will need to "de-stem" the kale, or pull the leaves off the thick stem in the middle. The stem doesn't dehydrate well and it distracts from the texture of the chips.
My favorite variety of kale to use for this recipe is "curly" kale, but "smooth" kale or Lacinato would also work well.
Cashews: I used "raw" cashews to make the sauce. It' an optional step, but you could soak the cashews before using them which will make them soft and the mixture extra creamy and smooth.
Also, soaking them would be required if you were using a food processor to make the sauce instead of a Vitamix.
- Soak the cashews in a bowl filled with filtered/purified water for about 30 minutes
- Drain and rinse them before adding to your Vitamix or food processor
Lemon Juice: Freshly squeezed lemon juice will give the best flavor and nutrients since it hasn't been pasteurized but you could also use store-bought organic lemon juice.
Habanero Peppers: These are extremely hot, so handle them with caution, using gloves or immediately washing your hands thoroughly. Start with (1) habanero pepper and add an extra one if you want your chips extra spicy.
Himalayan Pink Salt: This is my salt of preference, however, it can always be substituted with sea salt.
Shrinkage: You will start off with (12) cups of kale pieces which should fill 1-2 trays on your dehydrator. After the kale has dehydrated, it will shrink significantly, leaving you with approximately (3) cups of chips.
Serving Size: This recipe will make approximately (3) cups of dehydrated kale chips. Nutritional information is for ½ cup which is (1) serving.
Storage Tip!
Make sure you immediately store your kale chips in an air-tight BPA-free container until ready to serve because the kale will get soft and lose its crispiness if left out at room temperature.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can, but it's an optional step that will affect the texture but not the flavor.
Soaking the cashews in advance will make them soft and the habanero mixture extra smooth and creamy.
It's also a good option to use if you don't have a Vitamix, or high-speed blender, and want to use a food processor instead to make the sauce.
Here's how soak the cashews:
1. Soak the cashews in a bowl filled with filtered/purified water for about 30 minutes.
2. Drain and rinse the cashews before adding them to your Vitamix, high-speed blender, or food processor.
Yes, but....
I like to make kale chips in my dehydrator because I like to eat my food as raw/unprocessed as possible and keep the live enzymes intact at the same time. However, I know not everyone has a dehydrator and kale chips can easily be made in a regular oven as I did in with my Oven-Baked Cheesy Kale Chips recipe.
So, I tried a small batch in the oven, and they were "ok".
Because of the thick, creamy habanero dressing, they will not cook the same in the oven or be as crispy as plain kale chips.
Here's what to do:
1. Bake them at 350 for approximately 20 minutes or so
2. Toss them around halfway through, at the 10-minute mark
3. Keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't burn
They also didn't bake evenly. For example, the chips that has a light coating of habanero sauce were nice and crispy, but the chips that had a heavier coating were partially crispy and had to stay in a little longer.
It can be done, but you'll need to keep an eye on them and adjust the baking time some.
Here are several different varieties of kale such as these:
Smooth Kale - This variety has smooth leaves and includes "Lacinato" kale
Curly Kale - This variety has curly or crinkly leaves and is the most common type of kale
My favorite type of kale to use for kale chips is the curly variety, but either would work for this recipe.
That's a great question! Dehydrator kale chip recipes have been around for a long time and I didn't create dehydrator kale chips.
However, I had to distinguish my recipe version and photos as “original” because my photos and complete recipe also appear on OneGreenPlanet, who uses bloggers content to generate profit for their website by using bloggers content in their recipe app, cookbooks and by charging readers to print a recipe.
In addition, prior to August 1, 2025, they did not link back to the original authors content for credit or attribution. Their links either went to dead links or to an author page on their website but never back to the original author's website URL.
For this reason, I do not recommend their website and would ask that you visit and support the original author's website for recipe content instead of recycled and duplicate content on the OneGreenPlanet website.
For this recipe, “original” means if you see my photos and exact recipe from February 25, 2014 (word for word) on another site, primarily OneGreenPlanet, mine was the original and was posted first.
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The ORIGINAL Vegan No-Bake Habanero Kale Chips
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 cups organic kale
For the habanero sauce:
- 1 ¼ cup organic raw cashews
- 1 ¼ cup filtered/purified water
- ¼ cup organic lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
- 1-2 habanero peppers
- ½ teaspoon Himalayan pink salt
Instructions
Prepare the kale:
- De-stem the kale, break into small bite-size pieces, then set aside.
Prepare the habanero sauce:
- De-stem the habanero peppers, add all ingredients for the habanero mixture into a Vitamix, or high-speed blender, and blend until smooth and creamy.
- Taste and adjust the seasonings to your preference.
Assembly:
- Add the kale to a large mixing bowl, pour in the habanero mixture, then stir/toss until all pieces of kale are covered and coated.
- Spread the kale pieces out on a mesh tray of your dehydrator.
- Dehydrate at 110 degrees for approximately 10-12 hours, or until the kale pieces are dry and crispy.
- Store in an air-tight BPA-free container until ready to serve because the kale will get soft and lose its crispiness if left out at room temperature.
Recipe Notes
- Soak the cashews in a bowl filled with filtered/purified water for about 30 minutes
- Drain and rinse them before adding to your Vitamix or food processor
Nutrition Information
Copyright Notice
The notes, instructions, and photographs for this recipe are copyrighted material and are protected under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). They cannot be used legally without my written permission.
More Healthy Vegan Kale Recipes
- Jalapeno Kale Chips
- Cheezy Raw Kale Chips
- Vegan Cheesy Baked Kale Chips
- or my Real Food Vegan™ 14-Day Meal Plan Program with 42 plant-based vegan + gluten-free recipes made with clean, real food ingredients just like this one that you will love!
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