Vegetable Chips

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ebbs and flows of appetite that come with the seasons. For me, during the summer I tend to not be as hungry as I am in the winter. I also tend to crave more fruits, salads, and finger foods. I have also noticed that my boys tend to give me a harder time on vegetables in the summer than they do in the other months—they seem to be constantly seeking out sweet fruits and salty snacks. My theory on that is that they are craving high water content fruits and the salt to stay hydrated.

But they still need to eat vegetables! And since I don’t want it to become a huge battle, I have been working to present vegetables in ways that they are likely to find more appealing—vegetable soups, smoothies, and vegetable chips are some of our go-tos.

There are many reasons to love vegetable chips: they are a fun change of pace, satisfying to eat, easy to change up with spices, and so much better for you than the store-bought versions. But the main reason I love them so much, especially in the summer, is that they are incredibly portable! They are great for camp lunches, picnics, and meals at the pool or beach.

Vegetable chips are very simple to make and require very few ingredients, but there are a couple of tricks to making them that I wanted to share with you:

• Slice them as thinly as possible. If you’ve got a mandoline or slicer, now is the time to use it. If you don’t, then use a very sharp knife and cut them as thinly as you can, don’t worry about having them be perfectly round, after all how many potato chips are perfectly round?
• Pay close attention. I like to set the timer to check on the chips every 5-7 minutes at the beginning and then every 2-3 minutes closer to the end. It may be a bit more hands-on than a lot of my recipes, but I just set a timer and go about other kitchen tasks while they cook so it doesn’t bother me too much.
• They don’t need to be absolutely crisp to be done. This is one that you have to play around with a little bit, but just know that once you take them out and set them out to cool, they will continue to crisp up some more.
• You don’t need to coat them heavily in oil. Some recipes call for tossing them in oil, and you can totally do that and it will simplify the process a little, but I have found that by brushing them lightly with the oil instead of tossing them, I don’t use as much oil and they crisp up nicely.

So give these a shot! It is a fun and delicious way to get another serving (or two or three if you love them as much as I do!) of vegetables into your diet without even thinking about it.

Beet Chips

Jessica Braider

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Course Side, Snack, Vegetable

Servings 2

Ingredients

  

• 3-4 medium sized beets
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• Optional additional spices: garlic powder chili powder, garam masala

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Wash, but do not peel the beets.
• Slice them as thinly as possible, about 1/16 of an inch is ideal, using a mandoline or slicer, if you have one.
• Put your olive oil into a small bowl and brush a little bit onto both sides of each piece, laying they out on the parchment paper as you go. Make sure they do not overlap.
• Sprinkle salt over the top.
• Put them in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Pull the tray out, flip each chip, and put it back in for another 7 minutes. Start checking every 3 minutes, until they are starting to crisp and curl a little bit.
• Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet. Store in a sealed container for 3 days.

Zucchini Chips

Jessica Braider

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Total Time 35 minutes mins

Course Side, Snack, Vegetable

Servings 2

Ingredients

  

• 2 medium zucchinis
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• Optional additional spices: garlic powder chili powder, garam masala, parmesan cheese

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Slice zucchini as thinly as possible, about 1/16 of an inch is ideal, using a mandoline or slicer, if you have one.
• Put your olive oil into a small bowl and brush a little bit onto both sides of each piece, laying they out on the parchment paper as you go. Make sure they do not overlap.
• Sprinkle salt over the top.
• Put them in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Pull the tray out, flip each chip, and put it back in for another 7 minutes.
• Turn the oven down to 300. Start checking every 3 minutes, until they are starting to crisp and curl a little bit.
• Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet.