Beetroot Chips or Baked Vegetable Chips

Healthy alternatives to snack favourites such as chips, fries and cookies are a handy addition to a cook’s repertoire, especially if they are also easier alternatives.

Slicing up gorgeous root vegetables to make chips is made beyond simple with a good mandolin or a vegetable peeler or even the right kind of food processor. If you don’t have one of these, this recipe for baked vegetable chips is still incredibly easy as you simply pop your sliced vegetables in an oven and wait for them to crisp up. No hot oil and deep frying required. Easier, healthier and dare we say it, tastier!

We’ve tried Beetroot, Sweet Potato and even Carrot so far and are looking forward to giving Radishes and Turnips a shot. And now we’re wondering whether some delicious crispy onion chip might be possible. All experiments worth trying.

Meanwhile try these deep ruby beetroot chips that taste fabulous with a yoghurt dip. We dressed up our yoghurt dip with some smoked pineapple jam and sumac whipped into it.

Baked Beetroot/Vegetable Chips

Ingredients

2 Beetroots
Salt to taste
1 tbsp Olive Oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 160°C

Scrub beetroot really well and peel. Slice the beetroot quite thin. If you have a mandolin, you’re in luck. Use that to slice the beetroot as thin as you want. You could even try using your vegetable peeler to get thin layers of beets although these will have odd shapes.

Toss the sliced beetroot with salt and olive oil.

Bake for 35 - 40 minutes. Rotate the pans at around 10 minutes so that the chips cook evenly. Once done, let the chips cool as they will crisp up further as they cool down.

Enjoy!

Note: You can follow the same recipe for Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes and even Carrots. Just adjust the temperature and baking time.
Sweet Potato & Potatoes: Higher temperature for a lower amount of time (try 190°C for 25-30 mins)
Carrot: Lower temperature for longer (Try 135°C for 30-35 mins)

And if you want to skip the wait, we hear there’s an alternative! Now we haven’t tried this but we hear microwaving vegetable slices for 4-5 minutes and then letting them air dry is a worthy alternative for a healthy baked chip.