Vegan Junk Food – Making Vegan Potato Chips

Deb | 09/10/2014 | Reply

In spite of all my good intentions, even I occasionally have a craving for something inappropriate. Rather than fight it, I give in… just in moderation… to the taste I’m craving. It’s psychological. I don’t feel deprived, and I stay on my vegan path.

This afternoon I was thinking about the crunch and satisfying fingery grease of potato chips. It’s not like I ever ate them all the time (maybe 1-2x a year at picnics or what have you), but today I really wanted some.

So I got up and made them.

This is what they looked like in the end. My daughter had a friend over and they put hot sauce on theirs and munched happily away. Another score for Deb!

This doesn’t even qualify as a recipe, so I’ll just list the steps here and pictures as I remembered to take them. First, I used a vegetable brush and scrubbed the skins well. I used three organic russet potatoes.

Then I used my cheapo mandolin, purchased at the Alameda County Fair about 15 years ago (I SOOO need a new one), to slice the potatoes a uniform thinness. However, since my mandolin is on its last legs, some were thinner than others.

Anyway, the sliced potatoes were then placed into a large mixing bowl, filled with cold water, two trays of ice, and 1 Tablespoon of salt. Not sure why you need the cold, but that is what my grandmother always did, so that is good enough for me.

Let them soak in the cold salty water about 30 minutes. Take them out and set them in a single layer on paper toweling to dry. Pat the top dry as well.

Heat your oil in a large, wide frying pan until it is lightly bubbling. An electric frying pan comes in handy right about now because you want about 375 degrees of heat. But I kinda eyeball it and test the heat with one piece of potato. You want it to fry up crisp, not soggy with grease, so the oil must be hot. Use peanut, coconut or grapeseed oil because they have high smoke points.

Once your oil is hot enough, throw in a single layer of potato chips. Do not crowd the pan. Kinda toss them around to cook evenly with a slotted spatula. Once brown to your liking, remove to a rack so the oil can drain out. You need a rack so they can get air – paper towels will make them soggy. So use a rack!

Sprinkle with Kosher salt and serve. Yummy! I ate about 12 or so and gave the rest to the kids. Everybody was happy. It was a good day.