Like potato chips, but made out of beets! Slightly sweet, salty, and a little spicy with a hint of curry.

Perfect with Creamy Goat Cheese Dip.

This recipe was originally featured in If You Can't Beet 'Em in our Mostly Plants series.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon coarse salt

1/2 Tablespoon curry powder (with cayenne or other hot pepper listed as an ingredient)

5-6 medium red or golden beets, skins removed

Flavorless frying oil

Optional: cayenne pepper (if not listed as an ingredient in your curry powder)

Instructions

1. Mix the salt and curry powder together in a small dish. Add the optional cayenne pepper to taste if needed. 

2. Use a mandoline or food processor to slice the beets into thin rounds, 1.5-2 millimeters thick.  

3. Pour the oil to a depth of 1/4 inch in a wide saute pan or skillet, and set it over medium-high heat to warm for about 5 minutes, until it seems to shimmer. Oil is ready when the edge of a beet dipped briefly into it bubbles quickly and vigorously. Do not allow the oil to smoke. Set up a plate or baking sheet lined with paper towels near the stove on which to drain and season the finished beet chips.

4. Add beet slices to the hot oil one at a time, until the surface of the oil is nearly covered with beets in one layer. Fry the beet slices, turning them as needed to cook evenly. Cooking time will vary depending on a lot of factors - the thickness of your beet slices, the temperature of your oil, the size of your pan, the number of slices you are frying at a time - but generally, it should take somewhere between 4-8 minutes to fry each batch. Watch the beets closely and adjust the temperature as needed to cook them through without browning the red beets (slightly browned golden beets are fine, but the red beets will turn bitter as they brown). Beets are done when they are no longer actively sizzling in the oil. 

5. As the beet chips are finished, use tongs or a slotted spoon to remove them from the oil and lay them on the paper towels. Sprinkle the chips with a little of the curry powder mixture while they are still hot. Fry the rest of the beet slices in batches, sprinkling each batch with the curry powder mixture while hot, until all the beet chips have been fried.

Notes:

Please promise me something: after you've gone to all the trouble of frying your own beet chips, please please please serve them with Creamy Goat Cheese Dip! It's the pairing for these chips, and super simple: just 4 ingredients!