Recipe: Baked Zucchini Chips

When my daughter, Stephanie, was in town over the weekend we had the opportunity to try out a bunch of new recipes together. She's moving into an apartment at school this year so is beefing up her recipe repertoire and is also trying to add a few gluten-free recipes to her arsenal since one of her 3 other roommates is gluten-free.

I was so proud when she pulled up her Pinterest account and said she wanted to try making variations on these baked Zucchini chips, originally from the blog Vittles and Bits.

What you'll need:

• Fresh Zucchini
• Desired cooking spray
• Spices & seasoning of your choosing
• Baking Sheet
• Foil or parchment paper (optional)

Preheat oven to 225 degrees and spray foil lined backing sheet with cooking spray. Thinly and evenly slice your zucchinis — we sliced up 3 zucchinis using a mandoline but a sharp knife and a steady hand should do the trick just fine if you don't have one. 

Lay out zucchini slices evenly across greased baking sheet, making sure not to crowd or overlap them. We ended up using 2 full baking sheets for the 3 zucchinis.

Lighty spray tops of zucchini slices with more cooking spray and then sprinkle on your seasonings! 

You can use any type of seasoning or spice that sounds delicious to you. We tried 4 different variations of seasonings and just sprinkled them on 1/2 of the baking sheet — separate batches of garlic powder & sea salt, Hungarian paprika & chili powder, old bay and curry.

Slide 'em into the preheated oven and let them just sit and do their thing. After about 45 - 60 minutes, rotate the pans and let cook for another 30 - 60 minutes — until they reach they dryness and golden-brown-goodness of your liking. 

Here's what ours looked like about halfway through, before rotating:

Ovens vary and ours took a while longer to really dry out than the recommended 2 hours. We cranked up the heat a tad and let them go for about another 30 minutes before they were a crunchy chip-like texture.

In the end, we all agreed we liked the chips with the old bay seasoning and combination of chili powder & Hungarian paprika — what can we say, we're a family that likes a little spice! 

This was such a simple recipe and a great way to use up some of the abundance of zucchinis we keep finding ourselves with while they are in the height of their season. What are you making with zucchinis this season?