One Potato, New Potato...

     My husband loves sweet potatoes but I just don't care for them, especially their thready, fiber-y texture.  He suggests them frequently...very frequently.  He also loves squash which I disliked until I tried spaghetti squash (after much coaxing from my dear husband).  So since the squash worked out so well I decided to give sweet potatoes a try - but with great reservation.  

     At a past (long past - takes me a while to try new things) Weight Watcher meeting another member had mentioned sweet potato chips (and I had loved those fried sweet potato chips at a Mexican restaurant) so I decided to give them a shot.  Well, several shots, as it turned out.  The first few times I used my cheese slicer to cut the thin slices, my go-to-technique for thin potato and cucumber rounds.  I soon discovered that sweet potatoes are much harder - literally!  The baking temperature and time is tricky - one minute they look beautiful then next minute they're burned.  But one thing I did learn from that very first try is that they taste great!  To me they are much better tasting than store-bought baked dried potato chips plus they have the added nutritional bonus of beta-carotene and vitamin A.  They had me at better tasting...

Sweet potato chips, seriously addicting!

Baked Sweet Potato Chips  

Ingredients: 

• Sweet potatoes, scrubbed (I used 2 medium, about 13 raw ounces)
• Cooking spray
• 2 teaspoons olive oil (optional)
• A large, heavy baking sheet
• A large wire cooling rack
• Salt and pepper

 Putting It Together:

     Scrub the sweet potatoes well but do not peel.  Using a knife or mandoline type slicer, cut the sweet potatoes into thin slices; not paper thin but about a sixteenth of an inch thick.  I had a very crowded baking sheet with two average sweet potatoes; for more chips use two racks and sheets.

Such a time saver!

     Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Dump the slices into a large bowl, drizzle them with 2 teaspoons of olive oil (or spray them with olive oil cooking spray) and sprinkle on 1/4 teaspoon salt and a couple grinds of black pepper.  Toss with your fingers to distribute spices.  Sprinkle on another 1/4 teaspoon salt and toss again.

Using a wire rack is key to baking the chips.

     Lay the slices in a single layer (trying to minimize overlapping as much as possible) on a wire rack (1 large or two small placed side by side) placed atop a large, heavy baking sheet.  Spritz with olive oil cooking spray.  Sprinkle on additional salt if needed.  The wire rack makes a huge difference in baking and in the final product - I wish I had thought of it a few tries back!  On the rack the chips don't stick, there's no need to attempt turning them over, they cook more evenly and the clean up is much easier, too.  After putting in the sheet(s) turn down the oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake for 10-18 minutes, rotating pan halfway through.  After 10 minutes of cooking time, check them every few minutes - they brown very quickly after a certain point.  Remove from oven when crisped to your satisfaction.  The darker brown ones may not look as pretty but they still taste great.  

Lots of shrinkage!  13 ounces of raw potato became approximately 3-1/2 ounces of baked chips.

     A total of 13 ounces of raw sweet potato with 2 ounces of olive oil was valued at 9 Points Plus on Weight Watcher's Recipe Builder.  Using only cooking spray with the 13 ounces made the total go down to 7 PP.  Dividing the recipe into 3 one-ounce (a bit more, actually) servings would make each serving either 2 or 3 PP.  For someone who didn't like sweet potatoes of any kind, I now find them addicting and delicious!

Sweet potato chips make burger night even better.