I’ve been making my own crisps in the microwave for over 20 years and yet I’m surprised to find that some people haven’t ever even tried it! For me, the microwave oven is my primary way of cooking food. I try to use it for as much as possible as it really handles tiny portions so much better than other methods – and it’s quick and clean too.
So, back to microwave crisps and how you can make your own DIY homemade crisps at home. This is a great, frugal snack, but they’re also fat free (if you use the super fast & cheats way and don’t oil the potatoes). In short, it can be the easiest snack food you ever made for yourself and as I’ve just bought 2Kg of potatoes, I needed to start eating them!
You can put as much time, love and care into making your crisps as you like, you’ll always get a great result! The crisps in the photo here were done by me using the super fast and cheats way – a cheat method uses the minimum of equipment, time and effort, producing results in the fastest time possible. I hand cut one potato, I didn’t use any oil or flavours and I didn’t bother drying the potatoes first. I served my crisps with a dipping sauce, in my usual cupcake case. If I made any mistake here it was in using the smallest potato – using a larger potato gives you bigger crisps, but I just picked a small potato out of the bag in haste.
Super Fast Cheats Way to Make Microwave Crisps: 
- Peel a potato then slice it up thinly, as evenly as possible.
- Lay a sheet of kitchen paper on the microwave turntable.
- Lay down your potato slices, so none of them are touching.
- Microwave on high power for 2 minutes, then for 30 seconds at a time, checking/turning the crisps until they’re crispy.
Eat – you can eat them as they are, sprinkle flavours onto them, or grab yourself a small pot of dipping sauce!
A MasterClass Microwave Crisps:
Above is the super fast and cheats way to make crisps in your microwave oven, but if you want to put a bit more effort in then you can try any, or all, of the changes below, to give you better, or different, results:
- Dry the crisps before you lay them out – as the process of cooking crisps in the microwave is actually just drying them out, it doesn’t hurt to give them a head start by wiping them down first with some paper towel.
- Oil each potato slice – just a very fine spray of oil, this will help to colour the crisps as they dry. One of the instructions in making microwave crisps is to keep each slice separate, that’s because they would stick together as they cooked, oiling your individual slices might help if you had a little overlap (which I’d not recommend).
- Make sure your potato slices are as evenly cut as possible. If they’re the same thickness they’ll cook at the same speed. If your potato slices are uneven thicknesses, they’ll cook at different times and you’ll end up picking out 3-4 every 30 seconds or so as the thinner ones are ready soonest. If you have a Mandoline Slicer it will get your potatoes exactly the same thickness, I usually just cook 1 potato, so will just use a sharp knife to slice the potatoes by hand. Hand cut crisps will just have more variation of thickness, but create less washing up!
- Add flavours – you can add flavours by coating the crisps in flavours before you start the cooking process. Any powdered spices or flavourings will work. Alternatively, you can sprinkle flavourings onto the crisps after you’ve taken them out of the microwave. I’ll quite often just have a pot of dipping sauce on the side instead of flavouring the crisps themselves.
- Try using a microwave crisp maker gadget. I’ve got one and it is handy as I don’t have to turn the slices over – they stand upright on the microwave crisp maker, so less temptation to “poke them about a bit”, as you do when you’re cooking anything! For those less than perfect slices, you can also prop them up on the side lip or the top section.
Ideally you should eat these straight away, I’ve never actually tried storing them to eat later! The portion of crisps in the picture weighed 25grams, which is the same weight as a packet of crisps you’d typically get in the supermarket multipacks.
Is it Worth Microwaving Your Own Crisps?
Is it worth microwaving your own crisps if you can simply pick up a cheap multipack of crisps at the supermarket? Well, the problem with that is you end up with 12-24 packs, that then get eaten – and, they’ve got more fat in than your own Microwave Crisps. Cost-wise it could be argued that the cheapest supermarket crisps, by weight, are comparable in cost to making your own; the main differences are that if you make your own you’re only making ONE bag’s equivalent – and you can do that fat-free.
I don’t want to get into the discussion about supermarket crisps because, yes, they can be tastier and give you more variety and might be a bit crunchier, or something …. but you either pay £0.50/bag (much more expensive than making your own), or you get sucked into buying the huge multipacks (then eating them all).
I’d say – try this one day, just because you can ….. “for fun” – it does work!