Road Trip Snacks Part 3: Banana Chips

Chris & I have practically a freezer full of once-mushy brown bananas.  We do a lot better nowadays than we once did, but still sometimes a few ripe bananas slip past the lovely yellow & delicious stage into the more-brown-than-yellow stage of ripeness.  At that point, Chris tends to ignore them and I eventually throw them into the freezer.

Side note: if you freeze the bananas whole with skin-on, then when you're ready to use them, just pop them in a bowl of hot water for about 30 seconds, and the skin will slip off easily!  Then you can either use the rest of the frozen banana immediately in an ice-cold smoothie, or continue defrosting it for baking.

Anyway, I've promised Chris that I wouldn't be adding any more unfortunate brown bananas to our frozen stash, so I had to come up with another overripe banana solution.  This particular night, our oven was already in use roasting our peanuts, so baking anything was pretty much ruled out.  How about homemade banana chips?!

I had made banana chips one time before using a recipe I found online, and they took FOREVER.  It was a delicious concoction involving a honey-cardamom glaze or something like that, but news flash -- when you add a glaze to food that you're going to dehydrate, it makes it take about 400 times longer!

So I just went super simple on these banana chips.

You'll need:

• Bananas
• Nutmeg or cinnamon, if desired
• Knife or mandoline
• A food dehydrator 

Step 1: Slice the bananas

Try to achieve even thin slices, about 1/8" thick.  The thicker the slices, the longer they'll take in the dehydrator.  I just used a knife, but a mandoline would be excellent if you're a perfectionist.

Step 2: Arrange slices on the racks

Spread your banana slices in a single layer on the racks of the food dehydrator, making sure they don't overlap.  Our 4 bananas took up almost 2 racks.  They do shrink as they cook.

Step 3: Add seasonings, if desired

Your banana chips are going to be sweet, so you don't need to add any sugar!  We added nutmeg to half of the bananas and left the other half plain.

Step 4: Dehydrate and Wait

Set your dehydrator to 135ºF and run it until the chips are crisp and completely dry.  They'll look a bit shriveled but shouldn't be chewy.  Cooking time will depend on your dehydrator's settings, but it should take between 4-8 hours.

Check the chips periodically by munching on one -- if it's crunchy, you're done -- if not, just put the lid back on and check again in about an hour.

We made both kale and banana chips at the same time and they didn't absorb each others' flavors at all so you can definitely combine multiple dehydration projects at one time!

Step 5: Yum!

Once they're done, turn off the dehydrator and let the chips cool completely before packing them.  These banana chips will keep in an air tight container for up to a week, but we planned to eat them pretty much immediately!

If you care about discoloration of the bananas (like if you're saving them for longer storage), I've read you can soak the banana slices in citric acid or lemon juice back at the beginning, but again this will add to the amount of time needed for fully dehydrating.

Chris preferred the plain banana chips & I preferred the ones with the light dusting of nutmeg.  They were a perfect sweet snack for keeping us awake on a few late nights of driving!