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?

Loaded with Vitamin C, pineapple helps to boost your immunity, when consumed regularly. It also helps to protect your body against some of the common ailments like flu, cold, fever, etc. In addition, due to their anti-inflammatory properties, pineapples play a vital role in improving your gut health and digestive health.

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.

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Comes packed with nutrients – Did you know that the pineapple, with its origins in South America, comes packed with a bevy of nutrients? Eating just about one cup of pineapple (about 6 ounces) is highly recommended, because the fruit is loaded with 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. These are very effective in helping your body to fight against the oxidative stress caused by the free radicals. Thanks to this property, pineapples can help your body fight against issues like cell damage, chronic inflammation and weak immune systems.

Improves digestive health – One of the most active ingredients in pineapple is the digestive enzyme, bromelain. This enzyme helps to break down food quickly into small molecules. So, the small intestine can easily digest the broken-down food, reducing your risk of a condition known as pancreatic insufficiency.

Can provide relief against arthritis – Arthritis is one of the common bone-related ailments people experience when they grow old. More often than not, inflammation of the bones in the joints causes this condition. With their anti-inflammatory properties and presence of bromelain, Pineapples can help reduce the pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis, as per studies conducted in the USA.

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, raw honey, 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