You ever look at the price of a tiny bag of kale chips and think, “I could literally make 5x this at home”?
Same. So I did.
Tomorrow, I’m dropping a brand-new YouTube video where I remake four of the most overpriced vegan snacks — and show you how to make them at home for way less 💸 (without sacrificing taste OR macros).
We’re talking:
✅ High-protein Lenny & Larry’s-style cookies (but better)
✅ Salt & vinegar chickpeas that actually crunch
✅ Kale chips that don’t break the bank
✅ A tofu jerky you’ll want to hoard
I even calculated the price down to the spices — and the results are kinda wild.
If you’re tired of getting robbed at the register for “healthy” snacks, this one’s for you.
And if you make one of them? Tag me. I want to see your snacky masterpieces.
TRANSCRIPT:
Today we are going to see how inexpensively we can recreate some of those very expensive
pre-packaged vegan snacks. Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. My name is Dani
Taylor, co-owner of Vegan Proteins Online Coaching, and today I am going to be recreating four
very expensive vegan snacks.
If you were to walk into a store and buy these off the shelf, every time I’ve done it I’m just like,
ugh, that hurts because I know these things can be made way more inexpensively, but I’ve
never actually put that all together. So today I’m going to show you four of those recipes, and if
you’re looking for ways to level up your physique as a vegan, be sure to hit that subscribe
button because we put out new videos every week. Things like recipes, tips and tricks, meal
plans, and really helpful information with none of the fluff.
Alright, let’s get into it. Let’s get started with the recipe that inspired this entire video. We are
going to be starting with kale chips.
Look at how many kale chips I made for under five dollars total, and in this video I am including
all of the costs of all of the spices, oils, vinegars, all of that as opposed to my dollar store video
where I didn’t. This is all included under five dollars for all of this in kale chips. This would be
like probably thirty dollars if you were to buy it separated into bags, so let me show you how to
do it.
We’re going to get started with a bunch of washed kale here, and we are just going to tear it up
into pieces, leaving the stems. The pieces don’t have to be perfect. Some can be bigger, some
can be smaller.
Don’t worry about it. Next, in a small blender, we are going to add a quarter cup of cashews,
two tablespoons of lemon juice, a half a teaspoon of salt, a half a cup of salsa, a clove of garlic,
and a third a cup of nutritional yeast, and we are going to blend that until it is totally smooth
and creamy. Once that’s totally smooth, use a rubber spatula to get every last bit of it out, and
we are going to drizzle it over the kale.
Don’t just dump it in one big lump in the middle because it’ll be harder to distribute later. This
works so much better with hands. We are going to mix this with your hands.
You can massage it a little bit. You want to make sure that the kale is evenly coated in this
cheesy sauce. You are going to spread it out on your tray.
You don’t want too many pieces overlapping, but it does not have to be perfect. You may have
to do this part in batches. My air fryer slash dehydrator tray was kind of small, so this took
about three batches, but it’s only about 10 to 15 minutes depending on your batch of kale, so
it’s not too bad, and I put mine in on the air fry setting at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.When it’s done, I’ll check if there are any pieces still wet. I’ll pop them back in for a couple
minutes, but usually 15 minutes gets these crunchy delicious chips. So this entire recipe made
over four ounces of kale chips.
Your mileage may vary depending on how dehydrated yours are, but for this recipe, my batch
here, each ounce had 95 calories, 9.8 grams of carbohydrates, 4.6 grams of fat, and 5.6 grams
of protein, and this entire recipe cost me $4.34 to make, so I made more than twice as much as
most of the bags you can buy at the store for about half the price. Next, we know them, we love
them, Lenny and Larry’s cookies. They’re everywhere across the country in gas stations
nationwide, but I am not a huge fan.
I think the fact that a cookie is like 500 calories is kind of crazy, and the amount of protein in it is
kind of meh for calling it a protein cookie, so I have a recipe that’s not quite a dupe because I
actually think that it’s better. So these are going to be double chocolate peanut butter cookies,
and not only are these way cheaper, but the macros are better. Way better.
It’s not close. It’s not close. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and in a medium bowl, we are
going to do a quarter cup of all-purpose flour, quarter cup of vital wheat gluten, a quarter cup
of PB2, a quarter cup of cocoa powder, a quarter teaspoon of salt, an eighth a teaspoon of
xanthan gum, 20 grams of plain pea protein, two teaspoons of baking powder that I almost
forgot, and I’m using four packets of Stevia, but that’s entirely up to you.
We’re going to whisk it until there are zero lumps left here. In a separate bowl, we’re going to
add a cup of soy milk, two tablespoons of peanut butter, a teaspoon of molasses, two
tablespoons of sugar, two teaspoons of vanilla, and we are going to whisk this also until there
are no lumps of the peanut butter in there. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and
then mix that all together, and if you are smarter than me, you will not use a whisk because I
ended up with one giant cookie dough lump that I then had to press out with a rubber spatula
or a spoon to get this all together.
You want to see no dry bits of flours or anything like that. I’m adding two tablespoons of
chocolate chips. All I could find was the chunks, but I wish they had had the mini chips because
it would have distributed better.
On a baking sheet with a silicone pad, I’m going to spritz it with some cooking spray, and then
I’m going to use my rubber spatula to kind of divide this dough ball up into quarters. It doesn’t
have to be perfect because we’re going to shape these cookies a lot after they’re on the tray,
but make sure you give them some space because they do expand. Now, I have a larger rubber
spatula and I’ve wet it with just water here so that I can press the cookies down to be about a
quarter to a third of an inch thick.
If you don’t wet the spatula, it’s just going to stick and you’re going to have a blobby mess. I
also use it to shape them into a circle a little bit. This was probably the most time-consuming
part of this entire recipe is just shaping them into the cookie shape, but it really does make adifference because they puff up quite a bit.
And if you want to get them as round as possible, use a bowl or a wide-mouthed glass. And I
just wet the rim of it. I’m putting it around the top and then kind of rotating it in a circle around
it to really smooth out these circular edges.
And then I’m just going to add some extra chocolate chips to the top for some pizzazz. Pop
them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. When you take them out, they’re
still going to look wet and not done.
They are. Let them cool completely before you handle them and you will see that they are
cooked perfectly. So each of these cookies is only 164 calories and has 18.4 grams of protein.
Compare that to a full-size Lenny and Larry cookie, which has 480 calories and only 16 grams of
protein. And these cost me about 50 cents less per cookie to make. So I’ll actually give Lenny
and Larry’s credit.
Their cookie prices are not as outrageous as I originally thought, but for the calories of a Burger
King Whopper, I will definitely pick my cookies over theirs. Next up, we have some roasted
chickpeas. These are salt and vinegar flavor.
I adore salt and vinegar potato chips, but they’re not very good for you. And when you go to
buy something like this in the store, we all know how much chickpeas are. Why are they
charging us through the nose for roasted chickpeas when we can make them ourselves at
home? They’re fresher.
I think they’re tastier and you can customize to whatever flavor you want. All right, this is the
simplest of all the recipes. In a small saucepan, the smallest one you’ve got, you’re going to add
a cup of white vinegar and a teaspoon of table salt.
And you are going to mix it until it is completely dissolved. And then you’re going to add a full
can of drained and rinsed chickpeas to that. Pop it on the stove over medium heat and cover
and bring it to a low boil.
After it’s been boiling for just a minute or so, you’re going to shut it off. And then I would
recommend letting it sit there for about a half an hour to really absorb all the flavors. In a
larger bowl this time, you’re going to take those same chickpeas that have been completely
drained, but don’t rinse them this time.
Add one teaspoon of oil, just enough so that they get that crisp when we roast them. And we’re
going to add another half a teaspoon of salt. And then I like to put it in a big bowl so that I can
just shake it up rather than having to stick my hands back in there.
You can put this on a cookie sheet. I’m going to use my air fryer basket and just make sure that
they’re fairly well spread out. And then I’m going to put them in my air fryer on the air frysetting at 450 degrees for 18 minutes.
If you’re cooking this in your oven, you may need to add a few more minutes. And I would also
recommend if you’re cooking them in the oven to shake them around halfway. So this entire
batch cost me $1.65. And the macros per ounce of cooked chickpeas came out to be 148
calories, 20.2 grams of carbohydrates, 4.8 grams of fat, and 7.3 grams of protein.
And it is so simple. You can quadruple this and make several batches of it all together because
they are so fun to have on hand. And of course you can use different flavors also.
And we are going to end this with vegan jerky. Vegan jerky is a great thing to have when you’re
traveling. It’s high in protein.
It can be out of the fridge for a while, but they’re expensive. They’re expensive when you find
them and not all the vegan jerkys have great macros. So a few videos back, I made a seitan-
based jerky, which I think is fantastic.
But some of you asked for a gluten-free version other than the soy sauce, which you could use
tamari. This one is tofu-based and I think you guys are really going to like it. I’m going to slice a
brick of super firm tofu to as thin as I can get it, which is just under, I would say an eighth of an
inch thick.
This took me a while to try to get them nice and even. And at the end, I still kind of screwed it
up and ended up with a couple hunks, but I figured, ah well, we’ll use them anyway. Put that
aside.
And then in a small saucepan, we are going to add a cup of low-sodium soy sauce, a half a cup
of water, one teaspoon of liquid smoke, one tablespoon of brown sugar. And then I’m adding a
bunch of spices here, which are a tablespoon of garlic powder, a tablespoon of onion powder, a
half a teaspoon of chili powder, a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. And I also added a quarter
teaspoon of chipotle powder this time.
And we are just going to whisk this together until there are no lumps or clumps. And we’re
using a small saucepan so that when we layer all of the tofu pieces in there, that they are for
the most part entirely covered. You may need to press it down a bit.
And then on the stove over medium heat, we’re going to put that same saucepan and cover it
and bring it to a boil. As soon as it’s boiling, we’re going to go ahead and shut it off. And you
may want to leave this on the stove until it’s cool enough for you to handle.
I kind of jumped the gun here and I’m going to lay them all out on my air fryer basket. Or you
could use a cookie sheet that you have some parchment paper or a silicone mat sprayed with
cooking spray. And I’m just going to lay them all out.
It didn’t quite fit perfectly, but we made it work. And I’m going to put it in here on thedehydrate setting at 180 degrees for an hour and a half. Now you can do this exact same thing
in your oven.
You want to make sure that you’re going in and flipping it halfway. And if after an hour and a
half, it doesn’t seem quite chewy enough for you, you can always leave it in there a little bit
longer. Once this was totally cooked, it made 8.1 ounces of jerky.
And each ounce of that was 89 calories, 2.8 grams of carbohydrates, 4.4 grams of fat and 9.2
grams of protein. And the entire batch cost me $4.78 to make. All right, everybody, thank you
so much for hanging out with me on this hot and sweaty Sunday afternoon.
How many of you have already turned on your air conditioner? I’m really, really holding out
here, but it’s getting tougher by the day. I hope you guys enjoyed these recipes. Are there any
other vegan snacks that just like hit you really hard in the wallet every time you pick them at the
store? Let me know.
Maybe we can make an inexpensive version of them that is just as delicious. And of course, if
you’re a vegan who’s looking for any kind of fitness or nutrition coaching, that’s what we do
here at Vegan Proteins. That’s what we’ve been doing since 2008.
I will leave a link for the coaching assessment down below. And if you fill it out, you’ll hear back
from one of the coaches within a business day. And there’s some other free goodies down
there as well.
So check it out. If you liked the video, go ahead and like the video, subscribe, hit the bell, all the
things I’m supposed to tell you to do at the end of a YouTube video, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Bye.
