Thursday, August 2, 2012

Baked Beet Chips with Greek Yogurt Pesto Dip


Kitchen gadgets take up so much space. I’m pretty sure everyone has that bottomless drawer of randomness (lemon juicers, spatulas, assorted measuring cups and spoons, cookie cutters, peelers, zesters, etc.), plus a decent amount of cabinet and top-of-the-fridge real estate dedicated to blenders, mixers, juicers, or whatever. I try to keep my gadgets to a minimum (oh apartment living)…but let’s be real – things accumulate and some cooking tools are super-handy!


Case in point: my mandoline is my favorite kitchen gadget.  (I’m talking about a mandoline slicer, not a mandolin musical instrument...see the video at the bottom of this post to learn how to use one.)

The glory of my mandoline is that it allows me to slice thinly and evenly (julienne if we’re getting technical and fancy). It also has attachments to make crinkle-cuts and waffle cuts, though I may or may not have lost those blades…whoops!


Luckily the standard blade does the most important thing – easily slice vegetables into chip-making thickness. I recently experimented with Baked Beet Chips and they were soooooo easy and delicious. They definitely taste like beets (kind of earthy and a little sweet), but the flavor is not over-powering. And they go very well with this tangy garlic-y yogurt dip. (The chips are fragile, so a heavier or more dense/chunky dip would probably just break them.)

Baked Beet Chips with Pesto Greek Yogurt Dip

Printable recipe.
Ingredients:
  • 3 large beets 
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 cup plain Greek yogurt (non-fat or regular)
  • ¼ cup pesto (see my Walnut Pesto recipe)
Directions:
  1. Toss beets with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
  2. Thinly slice beets with a mandoline (you could also do this with a sharp knife, it’s just a lot more difficult to get them thin enough).
  3. Spread evenly on a baking sheet. (It may look like you have a ton of chips in production, but as they bake they shrink down a lot.)
  4. Bake 15 minutes, then flip them all over. Bake another 10 minutes or until chips are crisp. Serve or cool completely and store in a sealed container. 
  5. Mix yogurt and pesto to serve with beet chips.
  6. Enjoy!
Printable recipe.

How to Use a Mandoline: