Homemade Sweet Potato Chips

I had some sweet potatoes sitting around in my pantry not getting used up, so I got the bright idea that I would try to make my own sweet potato chips.  I'd tried sweet potato fries in the past, and they've been very hit and miss.  Sometimes they would be nice and crispy and delicious, and sometimes they would not get crispy and would be a bit soggy and mushy and kind of gross.  For that reason, I was a bit nervous about trying to make these chips.  I've never made homemade chips of any form before, so it was definitely experimental.

Tonight's menu involved shredded chicken from the freezer.  I was going to thaw it and make sandwiches, and sandwiches sounded like a good excuse to have chips on the side, so when my husband got home I told him of my plan and asked him to help me slice (I'm a bit stand-off-ish around knives...and he, well, he collects them).  Even he quickly decided that using the knife was going to be a daunting task, so he pulled out the gargantuan meat slicer and used that instead.  It worked very well, it's just going to be a pain to clean all the parts and get it put away.

Slices waiting to be cooked.

 Once they were sliced, we dropped them in small batches into the hot oil in the deep fryer.  The first batch I set the temp about 350, but they were a little chewy, so we turned it up to about 400, and the rest came out nice and crisp.

Frying in the deep fryer.

When they came out of the oil, I sprinkled them with a little bit of salt and pepper.   They were sooo good, I didn't think we were going to have any left to go with dinner because my husband and I kept munching on them.

The finished product.

My 2 year old only wanted to eat these, and not her sandwich!

I couldn't believe how easy they were to make and how tasty they came out.  I'm starting to wonder why I ever pay for chips at all!