Homemade Beet Chips

Fresh farm vegetables are quickly coming into style around the Colorado fields I work and play in. Within the past two weeks our harvest has expanded to now include green beans, shelling peas, swiss chard, kale, carrots, zucchini, baby potatoes, onions of all heights and my current love interest–beets! Boiled and served with butter and dill. Or roasted with onions and served over bright greens. Perhaps raw in salads? Any way you go about it, I know I find beets deliciously versatile. And I left out the best variation: fried!

Allow me to get my hot fat on. I’ll see you in 20, ok?

Oh, and I use my trusty kitchen mandoline to slice these wafer-thin. I recommend this as a kitchen gadget. For me, I use it a TON and it stays really sharp. Get one!

Print

Beet Chips

Course Snack

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 4 beets peel left on, sliced very thinly (a mandolin makes this quick work)
• 1 cup duck fat or fat of your choice. If you do not have access to an animal fat, I would recommend coconut oil, since it does not oxidize at high temperatures
• a few sprigs of thyme or rosemary
• sea salt

Instructions

1. Pour duck fat into a skillet over medium-high heat and let it become quite hot.
2. Try tossing (gently!) a tester chip in and see if it fries immediately upon fat bath entry. Yes? Then sound the horn and begin your frying!
3. Work in batches, letting each chip brown on one side before flipping to the other.
4. Remove chips to a paper towel or brown paper bag to drain excess oil, and sprinkle each batch with sea salt while still hot.
5. Once all chips have been fried, carefully--herbs will spurt and sputter--fry the thyme or rosemary sprigs to serve along with your basket of beets.
6. One beet serves roughly one person, but honey, please... these go fast and we all know serving size means nothing once fried.