I love potato chips.  It doesn’t matter what flavour they are, I will eat them.  I consciously avoid the chip aisle in the grocery store, as my will power is weak when it comes to crunchy, salty snack foods.

We have discovered a brand of root vegetable chips, called Terra Chips.  They make their chips, not just with potatoes, but with a variety of root vegetables; parsnips, sweet potatoes, taro and beets.  Because they use a variety of vegetables I feel a little less guilty about a weekend indulgence of this salty treat.

This brings me to the topic of today’s post: Oven Roasted Beet Chips.  I wanted to see if I could make homemade root vegetable chips at home, just by roasting them in the oven.  I set out to scour the internet looking for a roasted root vegetable chip, and came across this one from Civilized Caveman Cooking.

This recipe was very easy.  Some beets, olive oil and salt (the original recipe didn’t call for salt, but what is a chip without salt?).  I peeled the beets, pulled out my mandoline and started slicing.

I have mentioned this before, but when you are working with raw beets, it is wise to wear a pair of rubber gloves.  Beet juice can stain you hands for days.

I only had 4 beets, but I thought that would be plenty for Jamie and me to snack on.  I tossed the sliced beets in olive oil, sprinkled them with salt and put them in the oven.

I kept checking them, but they didn’t seem to be crisping up.  I kept putting them back in the oven, rotating the pan, but it took a long time for them to become chips (almost an hour).  I wonder if I had put them on a rack on the pan, it they would have crisped up faster.

The end result was a yummy, crispy, salty beet chip.  WooHoo, I succeeded in making my own healthy chips!

That being said, I don’t really think it was worth all the work and effort to make these.  4 beets resulted in 1 1/2 cups of beet chips, and the whole process, from beginning to end took over 2 hours.  Although it is pretty cool to think that I made my own oven roasted chips, for 2 hours worth of work to provide an end result of a few handfuls of chips, well, I don’t think the effort was worth the result.

I will continue to add Terra Chips to our grocery list, but can sleep well at night knowing that if I had to, I could make my own.

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Adapted from:
Oven Roasted Beet Chips – Civilized Caveman Cooking

Ingredients:

• 4 medium Beets
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp course salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Peel your beets and slice 1/16th of an inch thick using a mandoline.
3. In a large mixing bowl toss your beets with olive oil.
4. Line a baking sheets with parchment paper and arrange sliced beets in a single layer.  Sprinkle with salt.
5. Stack a baking sheet on top of your beets holding them flat.
6. Bake them for 30 minutes or until the edges of your beets start to dry out.
7. Remove the second baking sheets holding your beets down.
8. Bake for an additional 10-20 minutes.
9. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool, the chips will get crispy when cold