So you’re out camping and want an easy way to help keep yourself fueled. Why not dehydrate apple slices? They are super simple to make, you can doctor them up using cinnamon or sugar, they keep without refrigeration, light and easily transported! Best of all they don’t melt! You’ve got to think about these things during the hot summer months. If you’ve seen our posts about banana chips or beef jerky (you can find this one on YouTube) the process is much the same. If you haven’t and want to know more continue on. By the way there is a video we did further down the page. Be sure to subscribe to our channel on Youtube while you’re there!
Supplies
Here is what you are going to need to have to make apple chips.
- Apples
- Apple Corer
- Mandolin or Knife
- Spices if you want. Cinnamon and or Sugar are common.
- A food dehydrator. You can use an oven, I haven’t ever tried though.
Apple Chip Prep
First of course you need to wash your apples. If you want to peel them you can, I don’t. After they are washed it is time to core them. Here is the corer I use. Be sure to kind of line up the top and bottom before you start the corer. If you go off you may wind up having to try to get more core out with a second bore. You should be able to look inside the apple and see that there are no seeds or core left. If you didn’t get it all that is ok because you can simply clean up what is left once you have sliced your apples.
After the apples have been cored you are ready to slice them. I prefer a mandoline. Using a regular kitchen knife works too if that is all you have. The problem with using a knife is that you tend to have different thicknesses in your apple slices. When they aren’t uniform slices they will not dehydrate at the same rate. If they don’t you may have to pull some of your apple chips out of the dehydrator and let others continue to dehydrate. This madoline is very similar to the one I have. I have used many professionally, stay away from the cheap ones and the ones without support legs. It is very easy to unintentionally slice your fingers or hand with one so I suggest ones that will protect them as best as possible.
Slice thickness is up to you. You can go as thick or as thin as you like. I tend to eat the first and last slices as we go along because they have skin covering 1 face of the slice and I don’t like the way they dehydrate when they are like that.
Now that our apples are sliced they are ready for the dehydrator unless of course you want to spice them up. You can use any number of things to do this. Typically people will use either sugar (brown or regular granulated) and or cinnamon. Some people even use a little lemon juice on the apple slices to keep them from turning brown. I don’t do any of that because I like to keep it easy. The browning of the apples is merely oxidation and doesn’t make them taste any different.
Dehydration – Making them Apple Chips
Now that your prep work is done you are ready to load up the dehydrator. This is very similar to the dehydrator we own, we’ve had ours for almost 19 years now so I’m not sure they even make it any longer!! To load the dehydrator you want to lay out the apple chips flat and with a little room between the slices. Air flow is important in the dehydration process. Bada Bing – Bada Boom and 15ish hours later you are ready to enjoy those apple chips! Depending on the chewiness of the chip you like you can play with the thickness of the slice and the time in the dehydrator to get them to your liking.
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