Turn tomatoes into a fun tomato chip snack in minutes. No oven or dehydrator necessary!
I smuggled these tomatoes some 2,700 miles across the country on Saturday.
They went from a tomato field in California on Friday to my kitchen and subsequently, my mouth, yesterday.
If you’ve ever flown to San Francisco from somewhere east, you’ve probably seen that huge swatch of farm land with its perfectly straight lines and symmetrical plots from the airplane window right before you cross over the mountains and into the Bay area.
It looks like a whole lot of nothingness and it kind of is.
Minus the one little fact that what’s growing in those fields below happens to feed a substantial amount of our country.
That’s where I was Friday as I toured family peach and tomato farms that work with Del Monte.
As we stood in the 90 degree heat and blazing sun listening to the Pereira family tell us about growing and harvesting tomatoes, I picked up a perfectly good tomato that had rolled into the irrigation ditch and would therefore be passed up by the harvesting machine, rubbed it off on my shirt and took a bite out of it.
It was like biting into pure sunlight.
Sweet, juicy and the definition of fresh.
So when they offered us paper bags to fill up and take with us as we left, I filled up as many as I thought I would fit in my suitcase and was determined to get those tomato babies home with me in one piece.
When I got to the airport (ridiculously early with 1.5 hours to kill) Saturday morning, I walked over to the Hudson News store to glance through a few magazines.
I’m that person that reads magazines in a store and doesn’t buy them.
As I flipped through Food Network magazine, I saw this spread on vegetable chips. Tomato chips being one of them.
Then I read the directions and it said MICROWAVE.
Not oven, not dehydrator…microwave.
I don’t own a dehydrator, I hate turning the oven on in the summer, I like chips and I’m not one of those people who thinks the microwave is going to kill me.
If you are, you might want to move on from this post or try them in the air fryer. You can use the method in my air fryer zucchini chip recipe as a guide.
So, I snapped a pic with my phone and came home on a mission.
Et voila – it worked! Tomato chips with hardly any effort!
They’re like sun-dried tomatoes, minus the whole sun part and a bit crispier.
Douse them in salt, spice them up however you want, use them with some goat cheese sandwiched in between (<—yes, do that) or, as dippers for delicious things like vegan spinach artichoke dip or roasted eggplant dip.
Microwaved tomato chips. Who freakin’ knew?
Looking for a sweet chip instead? Air fryer apple chips are the perfect snack for that!
More vegetable chip recipes to try:
Jicama Chips with Citrus Herb Seasoning
Mediterranean Eggplant Chips
Rosemary Sea Salt and Vinegar Beet Chips
Pizza Kale Chips
Tomato Chips
Ingredients
- 2 large firm tomatoes, sliced thinly (about 1/16th of an inch)
- kosher salt
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Lay sliced tomatoes on a cutting board.
- Sprinkle generously with salt, let sit for 15 minutes.
- Pat the tomatoes with a paper towel to soak up the moisture.
- Flip the tomatoes, re-salt and let sit for another 5 minutes.
- Repeat the process with the paper towel.
- Spray a flat, microwaveable plate with cooking spray (I used olive oil spray)
- Arrange the tomato slices on the plate and spray them with cooking spray.
- Microwave for 5 minutes on power level 7. (see note)
- Remove the plate from the microwave, carefully flip the tomatoes and microwave for another minute.
- Remove from the microwave, transfer the tomatoes which should be mostly dry and crisp at this point to a cooling rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
blows my mind you can do this in a microwave..never would’ve thought of this!!
This is brilliant – I wish my tomatoes would have done better this year. Nerts – next year. next. year. :)
I have so many homegrown tomatoes, great idea :)
Love this idea Gina! I have a big bowl of tomatoes on my counter right now so I will definitely be trying this!
My mind is blown! I have soooo many tomatoes in my garden right now, I don’t know what to do with them all!! This recipe couldn’t have come at a better time ;)
Oh my gosh this is brilliant! I love my microwave and I love me some sun dried tomatoes…this is gettin’ in my belly ASAP. Thank you!
I’m dying over you taking a pic with your phone. Also… the whole microwave hatred from people is so weird but it’s kind of genius to do this that way!
This just blew my mind.
These are genius! I wonder how well they freeze… I’m not a huge fan of goat cheese but I could so sandwich these with some cream cheese and a pinch of salt and pepper! Great meeting you last week!!
Very interesting tomato chips recipe! I’ve never imagined using tomato such fun snacks can be made. It’s really freaking awesome and I love the overall concept. I can’t wait to try out such simple snacks. Thanks for a spicy sharing. ;)