Sweet Beet Chips

M...eat...less

There are many ways to enjoy root vegetables. It would seem that slicing and frying them is the common favorite.  Just about everything can be a chip, so why not beets? Beetroot is a stable in most Jamaican households. However while some persons may cook and eat it is primarily used for juicing. This is my first time exploring the versatility of the beet and the results are delicious.

 Beetroot is the sister ingredient in Jamaican carrot juice. Carrot juice at Sunday dinner is as much as national staple as ackee and saltfish. As a child my mother would always make carrot juice with the addition of beets every single Sunday. It was not until I became a teenager that I even realized beets could be eaten and used in other ways. For many person beet chips may not be anything new and different, but for me it’s a rarity. I can say that eating these chips was the first time I ever had beets that were not juiced in a drink!

To make them I followed by normal potato chips method of slicing, soaking, drying and frying.  I prefer to soak the veggies in a salt or sugar/salt solution so that the salt is infused into the chip, negating the need to sat them after they are fried (which I’m not a fan of) They end up tasting naturally sweet or salty as the case may be. In the case of the beet I used both sugar and salt with a hint of cinnamon. It’s a great snack.

Ingredients (printable ingredient list)

4 large beets

3 table spoon brown sugar

2 tablespoon salt

4 cups water

2 tablespoon cinnamon

Oil for frying 

Greedy Tips:

• If you don’t have a vegetable slicer, use a sharp knife
• Soaking the beets in the sugar/salt solution is optional; however it infuses the chips with the flavor rather than salting after they are fried
• The beets do not crisp up while frying, they crisp up while cooling. Fry for about 8 minutes at 320 degrees until the beets surface becomes bubbly on both sides then remove to cool
• they are very easy to burn, they should be dark reddish brown, if they are turning too brown they are burnt and will taste burnt. there is a very thin line between done and burnt with these chips!

Xoxo Greedygirl