Kale, How to Use it, Dry it, Blanch it and Freeze it

For twenty years or so I have used kale in soups. I grow it in my garden and collect seeds and plant them the next year. This year, much of my garden didn't grow as we had a late start with snow. I was blessed to get a huge garbage bag of kale from an unknown donor and am grateful for their generosity.

I wash each piece of kale carefully as sometimes they get aphids and it isn't nice to have them in your soup so I use a good light and rinse them carefully. I put the largest piece on the bottom of a pile and stick the rest on top of the larger piece. Once the pile is large, I roll the kale into a tight roll like a cigar.

I then start cutting the roll into thin slices. Once the slices are thin and the whole roll is cut you decide how you want to store it depending on how you will use it. If you want small pieces for use in omelets, soups, or rice, then I dry it.

For drying, lay the strips on the drying racks and make sure they aren't in clumps or layered too thick where it won't dry. Depending on the dryer, time will vary but I dry mine for 24 hours since the stalks can be thick and take longer to dry. When it is dry, I put it in Tupperware and when I make rice or omelet's, I just crumble a handful in giving a beautiful green color and adding iron and calcium to the meal.

If you want long strips for use in soups, once it is cut, place the strips into cheese cloth and dip it into boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Once it is blanched and becomes soft, lift it out of the water and twist the cheese cloth to squish water out. Then, place the cloth in a bowl and open it so the kale is showing as in the photo below.

Once the kale is showing, put a freezer bag over the top and flip the cheese cloth over pushing the kale into the bag. Zip most of the bag closed and then leaving a small opening squeeze all the water out that you can and seal the bag. Label it and put it in the freezer. This makes it small saving on freezer space and when you make chicken, turkey or other soups, just pour in a bag of blanched kale for some green.

If you want the kale for green smoothies, shakes or juicing, you follow the above instructions to the point that it is cut into strips. Rather than blanching it which does make it lose some of its nutrition, you freeze it raw in Ziploc bags, label it and when you want a smoothie, just pour the frozen kale in and it will give iron and calcium to your smoothie and will help as ice coming from the freezer. However, you can throw a handful of dried kale into smoothies and it will add nutrition and will thicken the smoothie or shake. Either way, kale is highly nutritious.

I have a wonderful kale chip recipe that I will try to get on here as I really want the chips. I hope I can get to it before I run out of kale and time!