There is a lot of frustration about vegetable chips. Recipes promise crunchy chips of beetroot, parsnip and sweet potato. In reality, you end up with a flabby and greasy bunch of vegetable chips.

We’ve bent on the phenomenon for a long time in the Zuivelarij and the result is this definitive guide to crunchy vegetable chips.

Cutting vegetable chips

Preferably cut the vegetables with a mandolin, meat machine or vegetable slicer. When they are all equally thick and will therefore give a more uniform result. You can make crunchy, dry chips from thick or thinly sliced vegetables. The thickness is important for the final mouthfeel. Wafer-thinly sliced vegetables will give a light and crackling sensation in the mouth while thick-cut greens are more crispy, firm and robust. Both of them are tasty, it all depends on what you prefer.

Finely sliced carrot and sweet potato on stainless steel rack for vegetable chips.
We cut the carrots with the peeler. They will soon produce fine, crackling crunchy chips.

Drying before frying

To end up with crispy vegetable chips, this step is the most important. The chips have to be crispy as before they enter the oil. If you throw the vegetables wet in the oil then the moisture evaporates during frying. The chips will be burnt by the time that all the moisture has evaporated. In addition, the vanishing moisture is replaced by frying oil. This combination can only produce bad, flabby, fatty chips. To dry the vegetable chips, place them next to each other on a perforated baking sheet. The chips may overlap a little bit because they will shrink while drying. Dry them in a 90 °C oven for about an hour. Thick chips longer. Wet vegetables also longer.

Sweet potato, finely sliced, vegetable chips
These chips of sweet potato are rather thick cut. They will therefore be less lighter and crackling and have a rather robust crispy mouthfeel.

Frying the chips.

Frying should only take 10 to 15 seconds and should be done at about 170°C. Thick vegetable chips can be fried for a little longer and for thin chips the temperature may be a bit up. But 170°C for 10 to 15 seconds almost always yields good results. Remove the chips from the frying oil, let them drain briefly by shaking them and put them on a large plate where they can breath and dry. Sprinkle salt over the chips while shaking.

Crunchy carrot chips in red bowl.
These thin roots are crackling, fragile crispy and need only a handful of seconds in the frying oil.

Storing vegetable chips

Put the vegetable chips while they are still warm on a large baking sheet and let them dry out well. Initially it may seem like the chips are still limp but everything is good. Once cooled, you can store the chips in a sealed box or in a warm dry place as above the heater.

Fried vegetable chips with Labneh from the Zuivelarij.

Serving

We strongly recommend you to try your vegetable chips with the Labneh from the Zuivelarij. When dipping with our Labneh we prefer these thick and robust sweet potato chips. Put a bit of your best olive oil and fresh or dried herbs over the Labneh and start dipping.

Labneh vegetable chips
Labneh wit sweet potato chips and Ras el Hanout

Our Labneh can be found in a number of Belgian food shops and the supermarkets of Delhaize.

Shops

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