Roasted, canned, sliced, boiled, pureed, fried, baked into chips. Any way you serve them, sans raw on a plate, I’ll eat em! I LOVE beets! On one of my ritual weekend trips to shop at the best farmers market EVER I was strolling out of our amazing italian speciality market, De Laurenti, and stopped to watch them throw the fish when I hear a lady behind me say, “And this is a beet chip! Give that a try and tell me how amazing THAT tastes!” Immediately I turned around and found myself facing the dried fruit stand which I had never before given a second thought to.
But, now the game was changed she said beet and chip in the SAME sentence! I tried one and was HOOKED! They were even part of my Christmas stocking last year. Seriously! I put chocolate in his stocking and he put beet chips in mine! Of course, being little miss DIY I had to figure out how to make them at home! I knew she flash fried them, half of why there were so good but I wanted to see if I could recreate the goodness at home with less oil and keep the same crispy delicious flavor.
So, I searched the blogosphere, Pinterest-ed and Martha Stewart stalked to find and read as many recipes as I could to assimilate the ultimate recipe.
Many recipes called for using a mandoline to slice the beets which I don’t have! Thinking I’ll invest in one, which would not only be safer and swifter but it would also make much more uniform chips! They also said to cut the beets 1/16th of an inch, which I actually had no idea what that size was on a beet because I have ZERO depth perception so I just eyeballed what I felt was “thin” sliced then got curious so I pulled out the measuring tape and what do you know… it was 1/16 inch exactly! I also found the using my misto sprayer with EVOO in it worked better than brushing each chip for my goal of using less oil. It gave a nice even spray of olive oil to crisp it up and give it some flavor instead of bathing the beets in oil.
Baked Beet Chips
1 large beet
Misto Sprayer + EVOO
Fresh cracked salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with non-stick foil.
Wash your beet(s) and pat dry with a paper towel. Keep another paper towel handy to hold the beet when cutting. The skin will help to keep the purple of the beet from staining your hands, but if you’re half as clumsy as I am it’s smart to keep one handy!
Using a sharp knife (or mandolin), slice the beets into thin 1/16 inch slices.
Spray with the Misto Sprayer then crack fresh Salt & Pepper to taste.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp then cool on a wire rack until completely cool. (I found that using less oil and the low heat of 350 took about 40 minutes to get them crisp. Next time I’ll try upping the heat and doing a double misto spray to see how that works!
