Homemade Banana Chips

Hello everyone. I just want to say that I LOVE BANANA CHIPS!

Oh my Lordy. I had no idea they could taste like little pieces of candy. NO IDEA.

I tried banana chips from the store when I was a kid, but I thought they tasted waxy, icky, not good. I flat out didn’t like them. In fact, I’ve never been a fan of dried fruit. I’ll eat raisins now if they’ve been plumped back up in a pudding or something, but the thought of dried fruit just kind of made me go “yuck”—before this past month, that is!

About a month ago, Caroline from My Gutsy and I were chatting about food and health and how to prepare beef heart, and she said she wanted to mail me some of her bison heart jerky to try.

A few weeks later, I received a little brown box containing bison heart jerky, assorted fruit leathers, a bag of dehydrated fruit, and the sweetest note ever from Caroline.

Caroline’s fruit leathers are actually what inspired the “Real Food World” musical parody video. When Frank and I first tried the fruit leathers (my first fruit leathers ever), I exclaimed, “Wow! It’s like we’ve discovered a whole new world!” Frank immediately sang out, “A real food world!!” to the tune of Aladdin, which caused us to go into a fit of giggles! “We should make a song about it,” he joked. I thought, why not? And that’s how the video was born. : )

We also ate through Caroline’s little bag of dehydrated fruit in three days. It was so delicious, we were trying to ration it, but it didn’t last very long. I knew I had to replicate it.

So I’ve started with bananas. : )

I tried this two different ways for different results. The first batch, I made crispy banana chips, and the second batch were more chewy, like toffee. Both were exceptionally sweet after dehydration. I could only eat a very small handful at a time. They really are like candy. : )

Crispy Banana Chips

1. Preheat the oven to anywhere between 98˚F and 135˚F. I’m really not sure what temperature I used, as my oven is really old and just has a knob (not even digital!) that reads “WARM” “200˚” and goes up from there. I put it on the “WARM” setting.
2. Take just-ripe bananas and cut them into 1/8 inch slices.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lay the slices in a single layer.
4. Bake/dehydrate in the oven for 20 hours.

Chewy Banana Candy

1. Preheat the oven to anywhere between 98˚F and 135˚F. I’m really not sure what temperature I used, as my oven is really old and just has a knob (not even digital!) that reads “WARM” “200˚” and goes up from there. I put it on the “WARM” setting.
2. Take just-ripe bananas and cut them into 1/4 inch slices.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lay the slices in a single layer.
4. Bake/dehydrate in the oven for 15 hours.

Delicious! Next on the list are Caroline’s pineapple chips, which are like a real-food starburst!

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