While potato chips are the greatest crunch around, they aren’t always the lowest carb or calorie item you can snack out on or use as a dipper.  Other vegetable chips work really well also and have a great flavor.  They aren’t hard to make and you feel a little less guilty eating them.

The ones I’ve found that produce great results are zucchini squash, turnips, kohlrabi and daikon radish.  You can also use carrots, other summer squash and eggplant.  Look for large vegetables for this purpose since they will shrink up to 75% while they are drying out.  About 10 slices of these veggies will give you a satisfying serving and come in at around 3 net carbs per serving.

Cut the vegetable into 1/4 inch slices (or about that).  I use a salad shooter to cut most of mine and even then, they don’t always come out to the same thickness.  You can also use a slicer or just cut them with a knife.  For the turnips, put them in a small plastic bag, add a teaspoon of vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon Splenda or other sugar substitute per cup of turnip slices to add a bit of sweetness to the turnip.  Let sit for about 10 minutes, then drain the liquid off.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees F.

Line a cookie pan with parchment paper.  Place the raw chips on the paper  as closely together as you can.  They will shrink.  Sprinkle with seasoning salt and pepper (I like garlic pepper) or any other flavor you would like to add.  I put Parmesan cheese on zucchini sometimes.  You could also make a sweet chip with a bit of sugar substitute, cinnamon and a dash of ground cloves mixed together and sprinkled over the top.  This works well with squash, but I’m haven’t tried it with the other veggies.  Pretty sure it would be good with carrots.

Put in the oven for about four hours.  Check it after three hours to see how dry they are getting.  They need to completely dry out and get crisp, but you don’t want to burn them.  Once they are dry, remove from the oven and eat.  You can store them in a paper bag for a couple of days, if they last that long, but they will eventually pick up moisture from the air and soften.   You can dry them out again in a food dehydrator, if you have one.

Nutrition Info:
Zuchinni (1/2 cup pre-dried – about 10 chips when dried)
Calories: 19.4 Fat: .5 g Net Carbs: 2.2 g Protein: 1.6 g
Turnips (about 10 chips when dried)
Calories: 42 Fat: .2 g Net Carbs: 6.9 g Protein: 1.6 g
Kohlrabi (about 10 chips when dried)
Calories: 30 Fat: .0 g Net Carbs: 2. g Protein: 2 g
Daikon Radish (about 10 chips when dried)
Calories: 20.7 Fat: .0 g Net Carbs: 2.9 g Protein: .7 g

Originally POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 8/14/2013 11:24 AM