RECIPE: Super Easy Apple Chips

Crunchy, homemade apple chips are wonderful homemade snack.

And it couldn’t be easier.

No dehydrator is needed to make these delicious apple chips; just your oven and a couple of kitchen staples.

Just as apples are a healthful snack, so are apple chips.

We like them “out of the bag,” as it were, as well as:

With yogurt or cottage cheese.

With a sweet yogurt dip*.

As a dessert garnish.

As a garnish with grilled or roasted chicken, lamb or pork.

With a cup of chai or other black tea.

WHICH TYPE OF APPLE SHOULD YOU USE?

Says apple grower Stemilt of Wenatchee, Washington:

“For these tasty snacks you’ll want an apple that holds up well in the oven or dehydrator:

Fuji Apples

Gala Apples

Golden Delicious Apples

Pink Lady Apples

Making chips is simply drying the fruit.

“Drying fruit is basically just removing the natural moisture so only two things need to be right: the time and the temperature,” continues Stemilt.

“Once you’ve got those nailed down, voilà!”

RECIPE: APPLE CHIPS

If the apples are sweet, or if you don’t want sugar, simply omit it.

Or, you can use a noncaloric sweetener that’s oven-stable (Pureane, Splenda, Stevia, or ZSweet, e.g.).

Ingredients

Apples of choice

Sugar

Cinnamon

Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 225°F.

2. SLICE the apples thinly. Use a mandoline if you have one (they were invented to slice fruits and vegetables very thinly).

3. SPRINKLE the sugar and cinnamon on top and bake for an hour.

Variations

With your next batch of apple chips, consider layering on the pumpkin pie spices: cloves and nutmeg.

Or, go for sweet and spicy, with some ancho chile powder and/or cayenne.

> The History Of Apples

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*You can simply use fruit or vanilla yogurt; or sweeten plain yogurt with a noncaloric sweetener.