Waiiiiit a minute. As someone who spent the entirety of her childhood trading the apple slices her mom packed in her lunchbox for a classmate’s Cape Cod potato chips, learning how to make a bowl of potato chips from scratch in the microwave (!) with no deep-frying involved is a BFD. Potato chips are my all-time favorite snack and the way to my heart.
So, what’s the trick for making homemade potato chips taste even better than a (half-empty) party-size bag of ‘em? Much like what I learned in culinary school, it all boils down to (pun intended) the technique. Indeed, a potato can be cooked in so many different ways—think mashed, roasted, or smashed. However, this two-ingredient DIY potato chip recipe is simplicity at its finest. With just thinly-cut potato slices (thank you, mandoline slicer) and a little zap of electromagnetic science (hi, microwave), you’ll be well on your way to enjoying homemade potato chips in no time.
How to make homemade potato chips in the microwave
According to a recent Instagram post by @itsvegansis, making homemade (oil-free) potato chips is beyond easy. All you need are super thinly sliced potatoes and a microwave. Of course, this may sound too good to be true at first—but rest assured, with the appropriate cooking tool and techniques, crispy, crunchy DIY potato chips are more than possible.
For starters, you’ll want to ensure that your potatoes are thinly sliced, and to achieve that, we highly recommend investing in a mandoline slicer. (Although it must be handled with the utmost care because they’re very sharp, I can tell you from personal experience.)
The good news is that there are tons to choose from on Amazon, and they tend to be quite affordable. I have a compact and lightweight Japanese-style mandoline that retails for just shy of $30—it’s simple but gets the job done. Once For All also makes a five-in-one vegetable slicer with a food hopper and safety shield to keep your fingers from harm’s way—it retails for $42 and is best for beginners. Meanwhile, OXO’s Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline Slicer is built with non-slip feet for extra safety measures and retails for $45.
Once you have your mandoline of choice and are ready to rock and roll, you’ll want to gather a bowl filled with filtered water and ice cubes and ensure your potato is nice and clean. Then, take your prepped and dried potato and start slicing away (I reiterate, very carefully). Note: The thinner the slice, the crispier the chip—think one-eighth of an inch or so. Once sliced, dunk the potato into the bowl of iced water for about five minutes or so to help remove the excess starch.
Now the fun part: Prepping the potatoes for the microwave, which is the final step. Once the potatoes have soaked for about five minutes, pat them very dry, and arrange the slices on a large, microwave-safe plate topped with parchment paper, ensuring none of the pieces are touching or overlapping. Lastly, sprinkle the soon-to-be chips with a bit of salt (or the seasonings of your choice) and microwave the potatoes until crispy—about five to seven minutes or so, depending on the microwave and the thickness of your cut. Note: You may have to work in batches, as the small confines of a microwave can be limiting.
Once they’re zapped to perfection, you’ll be stunned by the final results: Delicious, crispy, crunchy homemade chips that can be stored in an airtight container for a few days—although that may be difficult to achieve. That said, they’ll be best (and crunchiest) if served immediately. Bonus points: Pair it with a side of anti-inflammatory dipping sauces, and you’ve got a match made in heaven.
Other tasty chip variations to try
Yes, potato chips made with white potatoes are delicious—and really good for your gut. But they certainly aren’t the only healthy spud on the block. So, let’s quickly turn our attention to the bevy of sweet potato benefits that make it the perfect contender for turning into chips: They’re packed with vitamin A, full of fiber, potassium, and can help promote skin health. Oh, and taste darn good. Sweet potato chips, anyone? Thankfully, Jenny Bolle, the creator behind @eatmoreplants.no, was one step ahead of us.
In a recent Instagram post, part of her series where she “makes trending recipes to see if they’re any good so you don’t have to make them and find out that they’re sh*t,” Bolle swaps out plain white potatoes for sweet potatoes and quickly discovers microwave chips are definitely worth the hype. Sorry, popcorn. She applies the same technique as @itsvegansis; however, she adds a drizzle of olive oil and a few extra seasonings, including paprika, garlic powder, and onion powder, and opts for sweet potato as the stud of choice (obvi). Needless to say, it was an overwhelming success and passed the “worth-the-hype food trend” test with flying colors.
An RD explains why potatoes *are* healthy:
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