My dear readers,
When I go into a grocery store I always skip the inside aisles and just walk around the perimeter. But lately I noticed that stores caught on to that trend and start putting more and more “healthy” foods along the outside.
One of them always catches my eye – the veggie chips. The packages are designed to look colorful and appetizing and they just scream healthy.
But are they? Are store bought veggie chips a healthy paleo snack?
We need to really read the label of those packages, because even baked veggie chips contain fats that you would not normally use. Besides some other ingredients that you definitely would not add to your chips.
So you best bet is to buy veggies and make your own chips.
You might say, this is a lot of work, it is easier to buy a bag of chips, but believe me, there is not much to it.
A long time ago we talked about the Spiralizer – and this is the time to use it. You can make your own mixed veggie chips by slicing sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, beets and anything you like. Just make sure you put them on a paper towel to dry the extra moisture. It also might be a good idea to salt them on the paper towel and let them sit for about 10 minutes. Salting usually creates quite a bit of liquid – if you do that on a paper towel you can dry the veggie chips off before you put them in the oven.
If you make mixed veggies I suggest to use the oven. Preheat your oven to 375 and place your veggies in a single layer on parchment paper or a silicone mat. Brush the veggies with olive oil and season with salt and any other kind of seasoning you like.
Put in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the veggie chips are crisp. Take them out, let them cool off and enjoy.
Now some veggies can be made in the microwave – like zucchini. You slice the zucchini, salt and let drain on a paper towel. Put your slices single layer on a plate, brush with oil, season (zucchini and sweet paprika goes very well) and put in microwave for between 3 and 5 minutes, depending on your microwave and the thickness of your slices. Let cool and enjoy.
Now there are some gadgets you could use in the microwave to make your veggie chips. I have the Progressive Prep Solutions Bacon Grill and it says you can make potato chips with it. I tried, but with not much success. My potato slices got stuck and fell into pieces on the ripples. So it was not very impressive to me. But maybe you have better success if you have one of those bacon trays.
So my readers, I hope you make some veggie chips as a healthy paleo snack and let me know how it turned out.
Have a great afternoon!
