Sweet Potato Chips
Sweet Potato Chips - Sweet potatoes are sliced thinly and then fried and tossed with the most deliciously addictive spice mixture in the world. YUM!
Sweet Potato Chips
Jump to RecipeSweet potatoes and I don’t always get along in the kitchen. This mainly stems from a four day period of my life trying to perfect the art of baking fries. Turns out, it’s pretty much impossible to bake sweet potatoes and get them crispy and delicious. If anyone can send me a recipe that absolutely works consistently, I’ll buy you lunch.
Seriously.
Luckily though, when it doesn’t involve baked fries, sweet potatoes play very nice in the kitchen. They are great baked (whole). They are better double baked. And it’s a given that most people will have some sitting around over the next few weeks.
Sweet Potato Chips
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 sweet potatoes peeled and sliced thin
- 1 quarts oil for frying
Spice mixture:
- 1 Tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 Teaspoons paprika
- 1 Teaspoon fresh thyme
Instructions
- Peel the sweet potatoes and chop off the ends so your first slices are chip-sized.
- Slice chips thinly using a mandoline.
- Fry chips in batches in 350 degree oil. Be careful not to add to many chips at once or your oil might overflow. Fry until they are lightly browned and not bubbling, about 3-4 minutes.
- Remove chips and let drain on a paper towel. After they drain for about 30 seconds, season the chips with a good pinch of the spice mixture.
Nutrition
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Sweet Potato Chips
Addictive Seasoning
These Sweet Potato Chips are delicious on their own, but this spice seasoning takes them to another level. I mean, this stuff is out-of-control addictive.
It’s a simple mix of salt, brown sugar, paprika, and fresh thyme, but it’s like a drug. I was seriously licking my fingers while making it.
I want to put it on everything: chips, fries, popcorn… my toothbrush. Whatever.
Making the Sweet Potato Chips
Screw baking sweet potato fries. If you want perfectly crispy sweet potato snacks, just slice them really thinly and fry them. DUH!
Before you do that though, make sure you peel your sweet potatoes and I like to cut off the ends also so each slice is a full-sized chip.
Unless you’re a knife master, you’re going to want some help with slicing these guys. It’s just really important to get them very thin and very evenly sliced. It’s almost impossible to do with a knife unless you’re Morimoto. And if you are Morimoto then “What’s up Morimoto?! Thanks for reading! Bring me some sushi!”
For us mere mortals though, you’ll want a mandoline slicer to make this job easy and quick.
This tool is very easy to use. Just make sure you use the safety guard please. I’ve seen people slice off 1/8 inch pieces of their finger. Not pretty.
They give you the safety guard for a reason.
Slicing up two sweet potatoes on one of these guys takes less than a minute.
And your slices will be perfectly uniform. It’s excellent.
Frying the Chips
This part isn’t rocket science. Pour about two quarts of oil in your sturdy frying pot and get it heated to 350 degrees. As always, I highly recommend using a deep fry thermometer to monitor your temperature.
Once your oil is hot, carefully add in a handful of chips. Try to separate the chips as you drop them in so they don’t all stick together. Be sure to work in batches when you do this and start with a small batch. As the chips cook, they might foam some which could overflow your pot. Also, you want to try to keep your temperature as close to 350 degrees as possible. Small batches help with all of this.
I did my two sweet potatoes in about 5 batches of frying. If you have a large pot, you could do it in less.
Each batch will only need to fry for 2-3 minutes because the chips are so thin. You’ll know they are done when they stop bubbling aggressively. That means most of the water is out of the chips.
They will also turn a deep golden brown color. Then just scoop out the chips with a slotted spoon and let them drain briefly on a paper towel.
Be sure to season these chips pretty heavily while they are still hot. That’ll help the seasoning stick to the chips. Once they are seasoned you can toss them in a bowl and move on to the next batch.
These chips are crispy, salty, sweet, and some of the best chips I’ve ever had.
Betsy and I completely housed a whole bowl of these Sweet Potato Chips with no problem.
When she tried her first chip she looked at me and said, “What the hell did you do to these? They’re amazing.”
Of course, the secret is the seasoning. It’s pretty serious.
Nick, those do look seriously addictive. Not sure I can trust myself to make them unless there are other people in the house at the time to eat them!
Mmmmm! They look yummy, but I’m flat out not strong enough to peel/slice sweet potatoes. Those suckers are so tough!
You need a better peeler! Check this one out… it’s from an infomercial but its the best peeler I’ve ever used.
Titan Peeler
Hey Nick, great post!
About those sweet potato fries, I have a method to get the most perfetly crispy and delicious fries. Maybe it can work with sweet potatoes too…
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-how-to-make-perfect-mcdonalds-style-french-fries.html
And if it works, you’ll buy me lunch whenever you’re in France!! : )
Nevermind, I didn’t see that you were talking about baked fries!! lol
Ha! yea… I can get a crispy fry if I have a vat of oil. :)
nick! for sweet potato fries you want to bake, just use the same ingredients above pretty much. i always take a big potato, cut it into big fry sized strips, put in a couple of tablespoonfuls of oil, some paprika, and some “mixed-up salt” (which i can’t find down here, argh). then, i broil them in the oven, turning them over until i can’t wait any longer to eat them. it might be that i put them in one of those paint slopped pans that i got from my aunt. i don’t know. it always works!
try that! they don’t get as totally crunchy on the outside like a vat dipped fry, but they’re pretty damn great.
Those look delicious. I sliced 2 fingers in the same day with that dumb slicer. I am so afraid of that thing now. It was not a pretty site in the kitchen.
They look awesome! I get nervous about deep-frying… can you just use oil in a pot or pan? How deep should the oil be?
Lindsay, I usually use about 1.5 quarts in a 4 quart stainless steel pot. I’ve also used my dutch oven. As long as you have a thermometer and work in batches, you’ll be fine. There should be 4-5 inches of space between the oil and the top of the pan so it doesn’t overflow when you add stuff to it.
These look so good! (and as to the above, overflowing frying oil is a scary place to be in!)
i use peanut oil for deep frying sweet potato fries. Amazing flavor.
somewhere, i can’t find it, there is a note i wrote down for baking crispy sweet potato fries. if memory serves me correct it was via dipping the cold fries in a cold egg white bath (thin layer) and putting them in a very hot oven; making sure to leave each fry with it’s own space–no crowding. apparently the egg white coating causes the sweet potato fry to steam inside of its self rather than steaming up oven.
i’ll keep looking…..
Oh man… I might owe you lunch! That sounds like it just might work.
I have to make some of these again for Alexis, she loves them to death. I need to try to spiral slice them like they do at food booths at fairs and bbq contests.
Oh man. Spiral slice would be the bomb!
Nick,
I found this recipe on Pinterest, I have not tried it yet, but the author mentions that it makes the fries crispy.
http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/guaranteed-crispy-sweet-potato-fries-sriracha-mayo-dip/
good luck!
Trace
I tried a baked version of sweet potato chips – they weren’t nearly as great as yours look.
http://bakeorbuy.blogspot.com/2011/11/sweet-potato-chips.html
I just finished eating my first batch of nearly perfect, crispy baked sweet potato fries. It was actually an accident, since I had been planning on having them last night, but had to run out, so I didn’t get to finish cooking them until this morning.
Here’s what I did:
– Julienne 2 sweet potatoes (skins on if you’re like me)
– Toss with 2tbsp olive oil and choice of seasoning
– Spread out on foil-lined pan sprayed with a little olive oil
– Bake at 450F for 30 minutes
– Let cool and refrigerate over night
– Spread out, again, on foil-lined pan sprayed with a little olive oil
– Bake again (from cold) at 450F for 15 minutes, until crispy
Voila! The larger cut pieces were still a bit soft, but the thinner ones were perfectly crispy and delicious!
I have had a bag and a half of sweet potatoes left over from Thanksgiving, and have been trying to figure out what to do with them…I came across this little gem aka your recipe for sweet potato chips…So I just finished making about 10 sweet potatoes worth of (hand sliced…ouch!) chips…I think only 8 potatoes worth made it to the bowl…these are really good! My husband, who doesn’t like sweet potatoes, can’t seem to keep his hands out of them either. (On a side note, I’ve heard that if you coat your sweet potato fries in baking soda it’ll help make them crispy. I haven’t personally tried it, but knowing baking sodas purpose, i can see it working…)
Went to a pampered chef party over the weekend where they used a mandoline slicer to slice sweet potatoes & then used a microwave chip maker. They were surprisingly tasty & super fast to make.