Apple season is here-and so are the apple peels. Let's turn them into delightfully crunchy apple peel chips: a healthy snack or the perfect crunchy topping for your granola bowl.
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You know it's fall when your fruit bowl is overflowing with apples in every shade-ruby red, golden yellow, granny-smith green. I'm eating them nonstop right now: sliced into yogurt bowls, blended into smoothies, tucked into warm oat cookies, and of course, baked into apple crumble cake (with extra cinnamon, always).
Now, I'm usually a "whole apple or nothing" kind of person. I like the peels! They've got a nice little chew, plus all those good-for-you nutrients. But some recipes (applesauce and flaky apple pie) call for peeled apples.
Which means: suddenly you've got a big pile of apple peels hanging out in the kitchen.
Woohoo-great news!
They might look like scraps, but they're anything but.
These peels are the secret to the crispiest, fruitiest, most snackable little treats.
Apple peel chips: light, tangy, and juuust a little fancy. Also: zero-waste and wildly satisfying.
Between us, I might start making extra applesauce just to get more peels.
How to Prepare Apple Peels for Drying
Here's how to set the peels up for crisp-chip success:
- Use a straight peeler with a fixed blade, it makes peeling round produce like apples easier (skip the Y-shaped ones or those swivel ones that wiggle all over the place). I especially love the ones from WMF.
- Chop the peels into same-size pieces, about the size of your thumbnail. Uniform size = evenly dried = no sad chewy bits.
- Keep a close eye in the oven. They go from "almost done" to "burnt toast" in literal seconds once they start browning. Start checking after an hour and don't stray too far!
- Dry until crispy, not dark brown. A little color is okay, but you're aiming for crisp, not charcoal.
Once cool, they're crunchy and tart and just the right amount of sweet. I snack on them straight, sprinkle them on granola, or (pro tip!) steep a handful in hot water for a cozy fruit tea.
🍽 Recipe
Crispy Apple Peels (Chips) - Your Healthy, Zero-Waste Snack & Granola Topping
Ingredients
- Apple peels from about 2 kg/4.4 lb of apples
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 100°C / 212°F.
- Chop the peels into equal-sized pieces-aim for thumb-nail size.
- Spread the pieces out in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking tray.
- Bake for about 1.5 hours. Crack the oven door open every 20 minutes or so to let the moisture escape.After 1 hour, start checking frequently-they go from "slightly golden" to "oops, burnt" very fast.
- Once they're crisp and just barely browned, take them out and let them cool completely.
- Store in an airtight jar (like an old jam jar). They'll stay crispy for weeks-if they last that long.
I'm always curious. How did it go? Tried these crunchy apple peels? I wanna hear all about it. How did you serve it? Any fun twists? Any flops? Drop the details below because we all love a good kitchen win or a lesson learned.
Enjoy your apple peels. Waste less, snack more.
Wishing you planty of crunchy delights,
Ramona
♥
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