Vegan Pineapple Chips Recipe

Vegan pineapple chips are thin slices of pineapple dried out in a dehydrator or a low oven until chewy to crisp, with no added sugar or other ingredients needed. All you need is a ripe pineapple, a sharp knife or mandolin, and time, since dehydrating takes several hours. The result is a naturally sweet, portable snack that keeps well stored airtight.

What are the health benefits of pineapple?

Pineapple carries vitamin C, and drying concentrates the sweetness rather than adding anything to it. Vitamin C is one of the nutrients the immune system uses, which is why pineapple turns up in lists like this one. That is a long way from any single fruit protecting anyone from anything.

Here are some of the other impressive benefits that pineapples can provide you with. After reading these benefits, we are sure you don’t need any more reasons to make vegan pineapple chips in your home, as many times as you want.

MindShift Mentors · 7 nights free

It’s 9pm and you’re not even hungry

The kitchen light goes on anyway. Fifteen minutes of guided audio a night, aimed at the pattern rather than the willpower.

Try 7 nights freeThat’s me, most nights

Comes packed with nutrients – Did you know that the pineapple, with its origins in South America, comes packed with a bevy of nutrients? One cup of pineapple, about 6 ounces, carries proteins, carbs, fibre, Vitamin C, copper, manganese, folate, thiamin, potassium, magnesium, iron and various other antioxidants. It is low on calories as well.

Rich in antioxidants – Pineapples are rich in some high-potent antioxidants like flavonoids and phenolic acids. Both are studied for their role in oxidative stress. Pineapple is one of the few fruits that carries bromelain, an enzyme that also happens to be why fresh pineapple stops jelly setting.

Bromelain – Pineapple carries bromelain, an enzyme that breaks protein down. It is the reason fresh pineapple tenderises meat and the reason it stops jelly setting.

Drying changes the fruit – Drying concentrates the sugars, so the chips come out far sweeter than the fresh fruit they started as.

Do you need a dehydrator to make pineapple chips?

Before we get into this recipe, we would like to give you a disclaimer. You can make awesome-tasting pineapple chips within a few minutes, when you have a good dehydrator. You can also make these chips using an oven; however, the taste of the chips is not as good as the ones you make with a dehydrator.

Once you have kept a dehydrator and a sharp knife for cutting the pineapple into thin slices ready, making pineapple chips is nothing but child’s play.

Ingredients

• Pineapple - 1 medium-sized fruit (raw)
• Dehydrator
• Sharp Knife or a Mandolin Slicer

How do you make vegan pineapple chips?

• Using a sharp knife, you need to cut off the top and side portions of the pineapple. While cutting, please ensure that you keep the fruit on a firm surface to avoid it from slipping off.
• For the chips to be crispy and tasty, you have to cut them into very thin slices. While you can do this with a very sharp knife, we recommend you invest in a mandolin slicer. With this slicer, you can make skinny and even slices of pineapple.
• It is now time to keep the pineapple slices on the dehydrator’s tray. Please ensure that you leave enough space between the slices for air circulation. You need to set the dehydrator to the limits mentioned in the fruit settings. For pineapple slices, the temperature is already set to 135 degrees F in most of the brands.
• Switch on the dehydrator and allow the slices to cook well. Check them after 3 hours, to see if they have reached the consistency that you want – crispy and tasty. Usually, it takes about 4 to 4.5 hours to cook pineapple chips in the perfect way, using a dehydrator.
• Switch off the dehydrator when the slices have become slightly crispy. As you set these slices to cool down, they will keep getting crispier and crispier. So, cooking them to a very crispy texture in the dehydrator will result in overcooking.
• If using an oven, arrange the baking trays with parchment paper and arrange the slices on them with enough spaces between them. Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees F and cook the slices in them for 2 5o 4 hours. When the slices are dry, you can turn them over to cook the other side. However, please remember to keep checking them once every 30 minutes.
• You can eat these chips straightaway, or you can use these dried chips to decorate vegan cakes or puddings.
• When stored properly in air-tight containers, they stay good for up to a year at least.

Some variations you can try

• If you have kids at home, you can sprinkle some sugar on the slices before placing them on the dehydrator. To make the dish healthier, you can also use natural sweeteners like agave nectar, maple syrup or stevia on these slices.
• Sometimes, you can also allow our dehydrator to work overnight to get super-concentrated and super-crispy chips. However, you may have to check on them once every 3 or 4 hours, to ensure that they aren’t overcooked.
• Use them in low-carb salads to add crunchiness and sweetness to the total flavours.

Yes, it may take some time for the pineapple slices to get dried for you to make the perfect style of chips. However, making these chips right in your homes is a wonderful and healthy experience, which you cannot afford to miss.

• chip
• chips
• pineapple
• snack
• vegan