You can make these air fryer potato chips with four basic ingredients, one of which is optional. With the air fryer, you can have homemade chips whenever you feel the craving.

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You can easily make these air fryer potato chips in no time. These chips are the ideal go-to snack as they are the ultimate version of your favorite store-bought chips with added crisp and crunch, but minus the grease. All you need is four ingredients in total: potatoes, cooking spray, salt and fresh parsley, which can be added for a touch of brightness to the chips.

These chips are extremely satisfying, especially because they can be made in a short time. If you soak potato slices in advance, they can be air fried to a beautiful golden brown in just 15 minutes.

To air fry, they make a delicious snack with very little time and effort needed. If you have not used an air fryer before, make sure to check out our air fryer cooking guide, which answers all the questions you may have. For those looking for a new air fryer, our Test Kitchen recently rated and reviewed a new model as the best air fryer on the market.

How to Make Potato Chips in the Air Fryer

To begin, slice the potatoes very thin. For this, we recommend purchasing a handheld mandoline slicer. This gadget certainly does an excellent job on the handheld slicers making very thin, precise cuts, ensuring uniform cooking for all the potato chips. To ensure safety, our Test Kitchen suggests using a cut-resistant glove when slicing potatoes.

Now, the next step is soaking the potatoes in water. This removes the potato’s natural starches, ensuring the chips will be crunchy when they’re cooked. It also helps keep the potatoes from sticking together within the air-fryer basket.

And finally, put the slices of potato into the air fryer. An air fryer that has been preheated will blast the potato slices with high heat, instantly beginning the cooking process.

Ingredients for Air-Fryer Potato Chips

Potatoes:

For air-frying, the best options are Idaho and Russet potatoes due to their high starch content, which helps to crisp them. However, we also like using Yukon Gold potatoes for air-fryer potato chips, as they are creamy in flavor and crisp up very well.

Flavored cooking spray with olive oil:

Traditional potato chips are deep-fried in oil, but in this recipe we use spray oil to reduce the grease factor. The cooking spray forms a thin layer over the potato slices, which helps the slices crisp up without burning.

Sea salt:

To ensure every bite of the potatoes is packed with salty goodness, mop up the shards of salt right before cooking. Aside from the delightful crunch of the potato, salt is also one of the best things ever, right?

Fresh parsley:

This one is entirely optional, but layered mincing parsley can serve as a light finish to the chips.

Directions

Step 1: Prep the potatoes

Pre heat an air fryer to 360°F. Slice the potatoes into chips with a vegetable peeler or a mandoline. Transfer the slices into a big bowl and submerge into ice water. Let the bowl sit for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, drain the water, refill the bowl with new ice water and repeat for another 15 minutes.

Tip: To ensure crispy potato chips, thinly slice the potatoes into chips as thick slices will require longer to cook and will not crisp as much.

Step 2: Dry the potato chips

Soak the potato slices in ice water for 15 minutes. After this time, allow them to dry using the methods mentioned in the previous section.

Tip: The crunch factor of a chip is significantly impacted by the moisture content, and thus, it is crucial to remove excess moisture as mentioned in this section.

Step 3: Air-fry the potato chips

In this step, you want to spray the potato chips lightly with oil and salt them. Place the greased potato slices in a single layer in the air-fryer basket. Fry in batches and remove when the chips have a nice golden brown color and are crispy which should take around 15 to 17 minutes. Remember to turn and mix the chips after every 5 to 7 minutes.

Make out the potatoes from the air fryer and follow the same steps with the other potatoes. If you wish, you may add minced parsley and sprinkle it over the chips.

Sometimes, lightweight items may get blown around and even whisked up by the air fryer’s powerful fan. If you hear a weird noise, a potato chip may have flown into the heating element. Open the air-fryer drawer, and with a shake of the basket, the potential sizzling chip can be removed. Moreover, you can also remove the finished chips to prevent them from burning.

Recipe Variations

Black pepper: Give the chips a little kick with ground black pepper. Add it when you season the potato chips with salt.

Salt and vinegar: After cooking, add distilled vinegar powder to the chips.

Sour cream and onion: After cooking, sprinkle them with a combination of buttermilk and onion powder. Although ranch dressing and dip mix also works, it will add a more assertive flavor that can overpower the dish.

Barbecue chips: Toss the chips with barbecue seasoning and a dry rub. Feel free to add extra cayenne or chili powder to adjust the spice level according to your preferences.

Dill: Substitute fresh dill for the parsley, and the chips get a dill pickle twist.

Cheese: For adding Parmesan, sprinkle it finely and use a microplane grater. If you want to keep the dish vegan, nutritional yeast can be used instead, although the chips may need to be spritzed with water to help the powder adhere.

How to Store Air Fryer Potato Chips

Store chips in a resealable plastic bag or airtight container. They may be kept at room temperature for one week. Air-fryer chips can be kept in a freezer-safe container for up to three months, but need to be thawed at room temperature before serving.

If the crispy edges do fade or diminish in any way, you can re-crisp them by warming in the air fryer for a few minutes.

Why are my air fryer chips soggy and not crispy?

If chips are soggy, simply air fry them a bit longer. Different brands may have varying temperature and time settings, which can affect the doneness of the food.

You may want to check the doneness of your chips a bit later than the suggested time, but do not exceed the minimum. Start with the minimum time suggested.