Both my kids love store bought crisps – in particular ready salted and teddy bear shaped ones. While I am a firm believer that everything is fine in moderation I do watch their salt intake and don’t want them having these crisps too often. I have never made potato crisps before but the other day I had a glut of potatoes that needed using up so thought I would try to make my own. I have made apple crisps before and they were a huge hit so I also thought I would try the same method with pears. I then found some carrots lurking in my fridge and decided to make those into crisps too. Both kids loved them – well, The Boy liked the potato and pear crisps but Little Lady loves carrots so she wolfed the carrot crisps down. Obviously it’s quicker and easier to buy crisps from a shop but these really don’t take much effort or time so have a go and let me know what you think of these DIY crisps!

Potato and Carrot Crisps:

1 large potato

1 carrot

Vegetable oil

Seasoning (optional)

Slice the potato and carrot into very thin slices. I used a knife and managed to get quite thin slices but you could also use a mandolin.

I kept the skin on the potato but you can peel them if you wanted. Dab them with kitchen roll to make sure they are as dry as possible. Lightly coat the veg with some oil. Place the slices on a greased baking sheet or non stick baking liner and bake in the oven on 200 degrees C for 8-10 minutes turning halfway.

Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn. The thicker they are the longer they will take to cook and crisp up. Once they are starting to brown take them out and season if you wish. I didn’t season half of mine as they were for the kids but the other half I sprinkled with sea salt and some black pepper. The leave to cool and once cool and crispy enjoy!

Pear Crisps:

2 Pears

Cinammon (optional)

Sugar (optional)

This recipe is exactly the same as my Apple Crisps but I found the pears took less time to cook than the apples. Mine were crispy after 1 hour 15 mins of cooking whereas my apple crisps took 2 hours to crisp up. Obviously keep an eye on yours as again it depends how thin you cut your pears.

Once out of the oven sprinkle with sugar if you wish.

Microwave Potato Crisps:

As you know I am best friends with my microwave and love finding new ways to use it. I wondered if potato crisps could be made in an oven could they also be made in the microwave? I have to admit I wasn’t too sure they would work but surprisingly they actually turned out slightly better than my oven versions!

I sliced and oiled the potatoes in the same way as above then put them in a single layer on a microwaveable plate which had been very lightly oiled (for my first batch I didn’t oil the plate and they stuck!).

Cook for 5-6 minutes depending how thin you sliced them – if they are not that thin they will take longer and may not crisp up. Once they are browned (the browning actually means they will crisp) then season if you wish and leave to cool. This way is slightly quicker to cook the potatoes but I had to do about 3 batches to get a decent amount of crisps as I couldn’t fit lots of slices on my microwaveable plate.