A few years ago a friend of mine taught me how to make potato chips in a microwave. I thought she was kidding because I couldn’t imagine a microwave producing crispy chips. After cooking them for 5 minutes they were done, crispy, and wonderful!
Ideally, a mandoline works best to cut the potatoes paper thin. If you don’t have one you can use a vegetable peeler or slice the potato very thinly with a knife. Cooking one batch doesn’t yield that many chips, but its a great snack-sized amount for 1 person. If you’re up for a fun project and have a potato lying around, why not make some homemade potato chips? Or if you’re like me and need to pack a snack for your kids lunch, voila! <– You’re the hero of the day! Enjoy!
- 1 russet potato
- Non stick spray
- Parchment paper or glass plate
- Salt and Pepper
- Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the inside of your microwave.
- Carefully slice1/3 of a potato into paper thin slices using a mandoline, vegetable peeler, or sharp knife. You don't want to cut any more than this because any extra slices laying around waiting to be cooked will turn pink in color.
- Completely coat the parchment paper with non-stick spray and place the potato slices in a single layer. Spray the potato slices with non stick spray and lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Turn off the rotating option on your microwave and cook for 4-5 minutes. Cooking times will vary based on the strength and power of your microwave. Some chips may turn very dark brown. Ideally you want them light and golden.
- Also in my microwave some of the chips on the outside layer didn't cook as quick as the ones towards the middle, so you may need to remove the ones in the middle and cook the outer ones for an additional minute. Repeat the process until you've used your entire potato. Enjoy!
**WARNING** Some people have had their microwaves short cut, plates shatter, and potatoes go up in flames. I’ve never had this experience before, however, please use caution and make sure you use microwavable plates.
**UPDATE** I’ve made several batches of this over the weekend. If you don’t have parchment paper you can easily use a glass plate. If you don’t have non-stick spray you can brush the parchment paper or glass plate with vegetable oil.. lay the potatoes down, and give the potatoes a light brush over again with oil. Also, the less crowded your plate and parchment paper is, the less problem you will have with the outside chips not cooking as quick as the ones in the middle.
Jacob says
I know exactly why I can not make it delicious like you-lack some cool gadget you are using.
PLT says
Come on! Potatoes cannot “burst into flames” in a microwave.
Natalie says
I just made these, with a variation.
I didn’t bother to oil the plate or crisps, just put them on about 10 discs at a time.
I added a little salt to the top of each (ready salted!) and cooked them for 2 minutes (mine is a 650 watt microwave).
I then pulled them out and turned them over – they had stuck a little but not a problem – and put them back in the microwave for about 1 – 1.5 mins.
Done, and yummy!
Sarah says
I just made these!! they came our great–i just sprayed a microwavable plate with PAM and then salted the potatoes (i just sliced klondike reds really thin) so so good! Mine came out varied…most crunchy but some cunchy with that added chewyness…kind of like bagged sweet potato chips. I want to try that next! YUM!
The Eerie Cook says
I just tried this!
For those whose microwaves blew up, I’d say it would be to do with the wattage of the microwave, so give it a try again and just stop it at the three minute mark and allow to cool for a few minutes.
This is what I did with mine.
It works AWESOMELY with butternut Pumpkin/squash, and I am yet to try it with sweet potato and apple slices.
😀
Fun times with cooking!
Louise says
Great recipe! I’ve linked to it from my blog post at http://hubpages.com/hub/New-years-apps
Meg says
Wow! These were great! We all loved them and now I want a mandolin! I am sharing on my blog! Thank you!
Dave says
In case anyone is wondering (I know I was), it seems running a microwave on full power for 5 minutes costs about 3 or 4 cents, so this way of making chips is a money saver too
Susan says
I just made these and they came out perfectly!!!! I can’t wait to try different flavors!
Also I have tried your sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies. Both are the absolute best of each!! I will never search for those recipes again. You are extremely talented and I love reading your blog.
Camille says
Imagining a potato going up in flames made me laugh a little bit, but it’s probably not as funny in person. This is such a cool idea! I’ll have to try it with the million of potatoes that I have in my pantry…
Ankush says
I’m a 16 year old guy almost absolutely clueless about cooking, but I did manage to make this.
Alright, I didn’t have the paper you mentioned, so I placed the potatoes on the rotating glass plate and they stuck to it. I managed to scratch out some pieces and they were awesome.
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Katie says
These are how my homemade chips turned out: http://whiterabbitisme.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/homemade-potato-chips/
yummy!
Just Poppin Buck says
I finally got around to trying this!
Considering my history of trying to make home made potato chips (one try involved more than a quart of oil boiling out of my dutch oven and onto my stove, counters, floor, etc.), I consider it a win any time I have even a small amount of success without horrific property damage or grievous bodily harm. So this recipe was a win for me.
The first thing I’d recommend is to study the photos that Alice posted with the recipe. I had copied the text and printed it so I’d have it while in the kitchen and I didn’t take enough note of the photos which would have helped in at least one major way – slicing the potatoes.
So get out your mandolin, slice off the thinnest “chip” that you can, and then slice the rest thinner. My first slices were way too thick. After the whole experience, when I came back to this post, I saw how paper thin Alice’s slices were and they were like what I finally settled on. If you can’t see through them, they’re not thin enough.
My microwave also needed 8-10 minutes but then again, I cut a piece of parchment to fit the entire floor of the microwave and filled it end to end with chips. I just noticed that in one of Alice’s updates, she indicates that using fewer chips and not filling the paper completely will reduce cooking time so I’ll try that next time.
Also, don’t over do it on the cooking spray – I did the first few tries and it kept the chips mushy. Where there was less oil, the chip crisped up nicely.
In the end, I had a nice little pile of thin, crispy, chips with great potato flavor. I just wish I had a microwave the size of my kitchen table because making chips 10 or 15 at a time in 8 minute batches is too painful considering their incredibly morish nature.
By the way, I also tried it with sweet potatoes with not much luck. I’m guessing the added starch in the russets has something to do with the viability of the microwave method and it just didn’t seem to work with the sweet potatoes.
amelia says
wow! This is a simply genial idea.
I have just started exploring what my microwave can do.
So far, I successfully do scrambled eggs (so much healthier, because they don’t even need butter), fresh (real) pop-corn (seasoned with spices) and home assembled oatmeal (not the packaged sugary stuff).
Richard says
I am going to get a mandoline today!!!
Linda says
Fantastic! Thank you for posting this, I will try it this weekend.
For years I have made what we call “crispy potatoes” . . . which are tangentially similar to your low-fat microwave chips recipe.
1. Spray microwave plate with Pam
2. Peel a medium-sized potato
3. Keep peeling the potato onto the Pam-prepped plate until the potato is in thin slices on your plate . . . Fiddle with it to get a fairly even covering of the whole plate. You’re looking for a RANDOM-like overlapped tiled effect.
4. Season with kosher salt (optional: pepper, good quality onion powder, and/or fresh rosemary.)
5. Put in microwave and zap at high for about 5-7 minutes
6. Remove from microwave and lift with a spatula to allow steam to escape.
7. Put back in microwave for another 2-3 minutes
8. Repeat step 6 and flip over the potato “leather”
9. Repeat step 7 and watch for over-doneness.
10. When your potato crisp is all or mostly crispy and your desired of brownness, it’s done.
11. Enjoy!
chance says
DO NOT TRY! i tried this i did everything she said i put the potatoes on a plate i oiled it first then oiled the potatoes about 2 mins into cooking 1 of them burst into flames and the plate shattered,chips are not worth my house burning down and a plate being destroyed.
Amber says
I just made these and they are wonderful… I can envision so many different flavors… thank you for the idea!
Jonathan says
Be careful here – this has just killed my mcrowave. Some microwaves don’t like running with nothing in, which causes arcing. In my case , a number of slivers of potato clearly don’t have enough mass to absorb the radiation. I would stand & watch for a while to check this isn’t happening. I put mine in & carried on with what I was doing. I’m hoping it’s a thermal cutout & that it will spring to life when it has cooled down, but it doesn’t smell too hopeful…
Robert says
I am thinking of trying this with Sweet Potatoes and Plaintains too.
Jessica says
What a great idea. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this before. Now I have a project to try out over the weekend!
Sarah says
I add another step and dry my potato slices on paper towel before placing them on the parchment paper. Dry items crisp better than wet ones. Also, I use popcorn salt which is finer than table salt. These things are wonderful!
Fabio says
Great recipe! I’ve used baking paper and cooked slices for 3 minutes and 30 seconds at 900 Watts. Perfect! I’ve also wrote a post on my blog: http://www.ferrero.org/2010/03/patate.html (in italian).
Leandra says
I have had some of those but I never made them like that.