
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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