Healthy Potato Chips

Potato chips are best known for two things – salt and fat. It is these two things that make them so satisfying and ridiculously addictive. Lay’s nailed it when they said “no one can eat just one.” That’s the reason why Frito – Lay sells more than 372 million bags of chips each year. But as delicious as these crunchy little snacks can be there are “side effects” to eating them – at least on any kind of a regular basis. These side effects include weight gain which then increases the odds of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

I don’t care how tasty potato chips are they are not worth it to your health. Next time you are grocery shopping completely bypass the snack aisle and go straight to the produce section and buy one thing – a bag of potatoes. That is the only ingredient you will need (other then the seasoning of your choice) when making these healthy little potato chip snacks.

The first time I made these I conducted a sneaky little test on my husband. He poured some of his 40% less fat kettle chips in a bowl. Unbeknownst to him, I removed some of his chips and replaced them with my Heathy Potato Chips. He chomped away happily on his bowl of chips without saying a doggone word. Now obviously if doing a conscientious side by side comparison, the chips will taste differently due to not being salted and saturated with oil. But when mixed in the bunch they are apparently delicious enough to not notice a difference.

Directions:

  1. Slice an unpeeled Russet potato using a mandoline slicer on the thinnest setting. The slices should be approximately 1/8 of an inch.
  2. Soak the potato slices in a bowl of warm water for 30 minutes to draw the starch out of the potatoes. The potato slices will become very stiff. If the starch is not leached out it will block the evaporation of water from the slices and the chips will be soggy instead of crisp.
  3. Place the potato slices on a parchment paper lined microwaveable plate.
  4. Sprinkle the spice of your choice over the slices. I like a little bit of black pepper but garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika or cayenne sound good too.
  5. Microwave for 5 minutes. Turn the slices over and microwave for another 4 minutes or until the slices begin to curl and turn a golden brown.
My little mandoline slicer was $13.00 at Target. Please always use the safety guard with the hand held models. I found out the hard way the first time I used mine and sliced some of my thumb off. The blade is VERY sharp!
Soaking for 30 minutes is a critical step. Soaking washes away the starch from the cut surfaces of the cells you damaged when slicing the potato. The water becomes cloudy and you can see the released starch settle at the bottom of the soaking container.
There is nothing not to love about these potato chips.