How To Make Sweet Potato Chips [Recipe]

Today, we’re answering one of our most frequently asked questions: how can I make your delicious, crispy chips at home? Well, we’re excited to share our kitchen recipe with our amazing customers! We’ve spent many hours perfecting this sweet potato chip recipe in our home kitchen, commercial kitchen, and manufacturing facility. Even so, our sweet potato chip recipe stays the same regardless of where you’re cooking. 

Cooking Supplies

Here's a quick list of things you’ll need to make Jackson’s Sweet Potato chips:

• Sweet Potatoes
• Coconut or Avocado Oil
• Himalayan Sea Salt
• Mandoline
• Metal spatula, preferably a spider spatula
• Wide and shallow pan or pot 

Choosing Your Sweet Potato Chip Supplies

Purchasing the Best Pan

The most important tool is the pan or pot you use to cook the chips. We started with a Dutch oven, which worked well at first. However, it took a long time because we could only make small batches. Even so, we highly recommend using a Dutch oven if you have one! 

We ended up working with a metal fabricator in our little town of Crested Butte, Colorado to make custom pans for us. We found that the best pots or pans to use for the sweet potato chips are wide (12+ inches square, oval, or round) and shallow (6 inches deep).

Selecting Your Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes from your local grocery store’s produce section should work well. We work with trusted and established farmers to grow varieties that fry better during certain seasons. We also ensure that they maintain their starch and sugar profiles over time. 

However, we were purchasing sweet potatoes from the grocery store when we started experimenting in our kitchen. These worked fine, but fresh potatoes are always better than those that are stored for long periods of time. In most US grocery stores, the potatoes you see have probably been recently harvested and/or stored for a small amount of time from May to December.

Perfecting the Slicing Process

We use a mandoline to slice the homemade sweet potatoes because you can adjust the width. In general, thinner is better for the cooking process. If you leave the slices out to dry shortly after slicing (no more than 5 minutes), your potatoes will fry in the oil faster. 

Peeling and Prepping your Potatoes

Wash, peel, and slice the sweet potatoes as thin as you can while maintaining a uniform thickness from the front of the slice to the back. Peeling the skin ahead of time isn’t required, but it can simplify the mandoline slicing process. 

Bring the coconut or avocado oil to cooking temperature, ideally between 315-330 degrees Fahrenheit. Use an infrared thermometer from Amazon to help you keep track of the temperature. Ensure that the bottom of your pan has at least 3 inches of oil in it.

Standardizing the number of potatoes you slice and place in the oil can be one of the most difficult parts of the process. Generally speaking, the more oil you have in the pan, the more slices it can “support.” Vice versa, the less oil you apply, the fewer slices it can handle.

How to Fry Jackson’s Sweet Potato Chips

Properly frying your slices can take about 6-8 minutes. They should be cooked slowly with 3 cups of oil for every duo of medium-sized potatoes per batch. Medium-sized potatoes should be about the size of an adult’s fist. Putting that together, around 6 cups of oil should support 4 medium-sized potatoes. Given the choice, always add more oil instead of slices. In other words, fry smaller batches with generous amounts of oil.

Once the oil has reached the target starting temperature, start throwing the sweet potato slices into the oil one at a time. This is critical because the slices will stick to each other and fry unevenly if applied incorrectly. While you are throwing them in the pot or pan, be sure to spread them out over the surface of the oil to prevent the slices from clumping. 

The temperature will decrease substantially once you put the sweet potato slices in the oil (225-245 degrees Fahrenheit). However, the temperature will slowly rise as you continue the baking process. This happens because the water content in the potato vaporizes while the carbohydrates and fiber begin to crystallize. 

Use a metal spatula to consistently stir the sweet potato slices to prevent them from adhering to each other once they’re in the oil. You’ll know that they’re close to completion when they stop bubbling. This is a sign that the slices’ water content has been vaporized. This typically happens within 6-8 minutes of placing them in the oil. However, this can depend on the amount of oil and sweet potato slices you placed in the pan. At this point, they should have a nice bright orange color with a slight brown tint.

Finishing Your Batch

Remove the sweet potatoes once they look slightly undercooked. This allows them to fry after they’ve been removed from the oil. It’s okay if they appear to be soft and pliable upon removal - this is an important part of the transition process. 

They’ll proceed to stop cooking before the fibers and carbohydrates start stabilizing. They’ll start to stiffen 2-3 minutes after removal before finally crisping into a sweet potato chip after 5 minutes. If the homemade sweet potato slices haven’t completely stiffened by this point, cook them for a little bit longer and apply the same time to the next batch. 

We use a metal colander to drain the oil from the kettle chips while holding them over the hot oil before flipping them onto a large salad bowl lined with paper towels to capture any excess oil. We try to season them one minute after exiting the oil to salt them while they are hot. This helps the oil adhere to the homemade slices properly.

Enjoy Your Homemade Sweet Potato Chips!

Once your hard work has paid off, it’s time to enjoy your freshly fried sweet potato chips! In our house, we use a 1-1 ratio: the cook gets a chip for every kettle chip they give away.

We know that making delicious sweet potato chips is a lot of work. If you need to compare your creation to some chips you know will be tasty, we've got you covered! Buy today or find us in a store near you!