Baked Apple Chips

Published November 7, 2021. Updated November 8, 2021

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Homemade Baked Apple Chips! They’re perfectly easy to make, amazingly crisp, lightly cinnamon sprinkled, and they have such a delicious concentrated apple flavor. Easily one of the best snacks!

Easy DIY Baked Apple Chips

These baked apple chips are a nutritious treat you can feel good about eating, and they can even curb that dessert craving with their natural fruit sugars.

They’re a fun little kitchen project, and after you’ve made them a time or two it will be a total breeze from there on out. You can prep them in minutes.

The trick is just to use a mandoline slicer. Not only does it give you perfectly even slices that bake evenly but it cuts the prep into a tiny fraction of what it would be without one.

Just plan some time because they do need a few hours to completely dry at a lower oven temperature.

These are one of those things you’ll want to make time and time again once you see how simple and tasty they are, plus everyone loves them!

Best Apples to Use for Baked Apple Chips

I recommend using a sweet crisp apple for apple chips. Here are some great choices:

honeycrisp
gala
pink lady
tango
fuji

Adding Spices or Sugar

Really you don’t even need cinnamon but you can add it if you love that extra hint of flavor. Use 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. If you love spices feel free to include others like nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, cloves or allspice.
I never add sugar but if you want more of a treat you can add a tablespoon or two. Or if you only have tart apples such as granny smith you may opt to sweeten them so they aren’t sour.

How to Make Apple Chips in the Oven

Set racks, heat oven: Place oven racks in upper third and lower third of the oven. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Prepare baking sheets: Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
Slice apples very thin: Remove stem from apples then carefully cut apples with a mandoline to 1/10th to 1/12th-inch thickness. Optionally remove seeds that are stuck in centers.
Set on baking sheets: Align apple slices side by side on baking sheets (they can tilt up the inner rim of the baking sheet along the edges if needed so you can fit more, just don’t overlap).
Bake until dry and crisp: Bake in preheated oven 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Rotate pans to opposite oven rack and continue to bake until apples are dry (and crisp when rested at room temperature for 2 minutes), about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes longer.

How to Store Apple Chips

Apple chips will keep for 1 week stored in a well sealed, airtight container.
Just be sure they’ve been thoroughly dried in the oven or they can go stale after a day or two.

Helpful Tips

I only recommend making these with a mandoline. It’s very hard to slice the apples so thinly by hand and impossible to cut them all even.
Don’t be tempted to increase the oven temperature. They need to bake low and slow to dry out properly without burning up.
You don’t need that much cinnamon, you don’t want to hide the apple flavor. And keep in mind the apples shrink as they bake and the juices evaporate so the cinnamon will seem more concentrated as well.
I like to use a tiny sieve to evenly dust the cinnamon, though this is optional.
Keep the apples in a single layer. It’s tempting to want to overlap them so you can squeeze more on the pan but the overlapped areas wouldn’t dry as well. I did however find it was okay if they needed to tilt up the inside edge of the rim of the baking sheet to fit.
Apples curl up more when using parchment paper and a little less on silicone baking mats (they do stick just ever so slightly to the mats) but really there’s no issue here it just depends on which you prefer.
Avoid using the very upper and lower few slices of the apple. These mostly peel portions don’t dry up as well or taste as good.
Let apples cool for a minute or two before you test for doneness. They need to cool just a little to be completely crisp.

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Apple chips shown in a white bowl on a wooden tabletop with fresh apples and leaves surrounding them.

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