Homemade Air-fried Banana Chips

Who doesn’t love a good packet of banana chips? They’re crispy, salty, full of flavour, make the world good and whole again. Incase you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ve got a serious banana chip addiction. So much so, that I am convinced there is a hidden Kerala gene in my north-Indian ancestry somewhere.

Thanks to more than a year of staying at home in the pandemic, food experiments are pretty much at an all time high. I was looking for a way to lighten up deep fried banana chips, and the trusty air-fryer came to mind. Its a pretty simple recipe, all you need is raw green banana (also known as plantains in certain parts of the world), salt, turmeric and coconut oil. Also, using regular yellow bananas won’t work at all. Hunt down the raw green bananas and half your work is done. Plus, removing the deep-frying step is a definite win for everybody involved!

Here’s the trick to yellow salty goodness that makes banana chips shine– you’ve got to soak them in water with turmeric for the colour and the flavour to come through. Once they’re soaked, its about as easy as making air-fried potatoes.

Ingredients:

2-3 Raw Green Bananas (Also known as plantains)

1 Tsp turmeric powder

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp coconut oil

Cooking Instructions:

Peel the bananas. Slice the peeled banana’s either using the slice attachment of your box grater or with a mandolin. If you don’t own either of these, its fine, slice into thin chips with a knife.

Soak the sliced bananas – transfer into a mixing bowl filled with water, and turmeric. Allow it soak for at least 30 minutes. This important step will remove any extra starch from the banana as well as add both the colour and flavour. Once soaked, Pat dry with a kitchen towel. Toss in a bowl with coconut oil & salt, and transfer to an air-fryer once its mixed well.

Roast them in the air-fryer at 300F/150C for 10-12 minutes(depending on how thick you sliced these. For example if you think your slices are very thinly sliced, go for 10 minutes. Increase the time if they’re thicker) If you want an even more store like cook on them, flipping them midway will do the trick. But even if you don’t flip midway and just let them cook through, you’ll end up with crispy banana chips.

The exact time on these depends on oven and air-fryer models, and differs with each one. I suggest checking in on the chips at the 10 minute mark and adjusting time based on how crisp they look to you. Once you’ve shut off the air-fryer, leave them to cool inside the rack itself so they can crisp up further. Once they’re add, you can add in more salt to taste if needed. That’s it, you’re done. Happy Cooking!