How to Make Potato Chips at Home

Potato chips are a top-tier snack for a reason—that crispy, salty crunch is hard to beat. Grabbing a bag from the store always works to quickly satisfy yourself. But when you have a little time, you’ll find that homemade potato chips are surprisingly simple to make and well worth the effort.

Why Should You Make Potato Chips at Home?

Store-bought chips are convenient and delicious; making potato chips yourself gives you complete control over flavor and preparation. Both are great options, but if you like trying new recipes and experimenting with food, making potato chips at home is just plain fun.

When you make potato chips at home, you can:

Choose your preferred type of potato
Select your favorite oils and seasonings
Control thickness and texture
Bake or fry

Your homemade version will likely look or taste slightly different than store-bought chips. That’s part of the appeal—they’re uniquely yours.

Best Potatoes to Use

Chipping potatoes are specifically bred and grown to make your favorite brands of chips. Their combination of shape, starch and moisture content, and texture ensures consistently round, crunchy, golden chips.

To achieve a similar chip at home, use yellow or white potatoes. They have the right amount of starch for light and crispy chips; they also have relatively low moisture to prevent excess oil absorption.

Russets are another option for potato chips. They’ll produce darker, thicker chips if that’s the look and texture you enjoy.

Best Practices for Perfect Chips

Slicing: If you prefer thin, crispy chips, use a mandoline or food processor with a slicing attachment for uniform slices. For thicker, crunchier chips, you can cut your potatoes by hand. Be sure to use a sharp knife.
Peeling: Whether you keep the skin on your potatoes is a matter of personal preference. Peeling your potatoes will ensure your chips have an even texture. If you use white or yellow potatoes, both have thin skins, so you may not even notice a difference if you leave the skins. Additionally, keeping the skin reduces preparation time.
Soaking: After slicing, soak potatoes in water. For even better results, add salt and apple cider vinegar (3 tbsp salt and ¼ cup vinegar per gallon of water). This helps maintain the color and structure of the final chips. Make sure to dry your potato slices well afterward. Pulling out excess moisture will help the chips get nice and crispy.
Baking: If you bake your chips instead of frying them, use a silicone mat on your baking sheet. Parchment paper can cause the chips to burn or stick.
Seasoning: Add seasoning immediately after baking or frying the chips. The hot chips will absorb the flavor better than if they’re seasoned before cooking or after cooling. If you season your chips before cooking them, the seasoning is likely to burn.

Cooking Methods

You can prepare homemade chips in three ways:

Air fryer – Quick and convenient for small batches.
Oven baking – Great for larger batches.
Deep frying – Traditional but less familiar method.

How to Make Chips in an Air Fryer or Oven

Whether you use an air fryer or an oven, you’ll follow the same process for making your chips. The only difference is that an oven can bake more chips at once, and an air fryer is perfect for a single-serving snack.

After you’ve prepped, soaked, and dried your potatoes as outlined in the best practices above, spread them out on your lined baking sheet or in the air fryer basket. Lightly brush them with vegetable oil and season them with a sprinkle of salt.

Bake your chips at 400° F for about 20 minutes, rotating your pan or flipping the chips halfway through the cooking time. Remove the chips when they’re golden brown and add additional seasonings. Then allow the potato chips to cool, and enjoy them on their own or with your favorite dip.

How to Make Chips by Deep Frying

Fewer home cooks have tried deep frying, but it can be a fun new skill to learn. Frying potato chips is a great way to start.

Whether you invest in a fryer or simply use a deep, heavy-bottomed pot, frying best practices are the same: use fresh oil, make sure it gets up to temperature before you start and in between batches, and fry a small amount at a time to avoid overcrowding.

After you’ve prepped, soaked, and dried your potatoes as outlined in the best practices above, heat your fryer or a pot of vegetable oil to 350° F. Fry the chips in small batches for about 7-8 minutes. You’ll know they’re done because the bubbles in the oil will subside, and the chips will turn golden and crisp.

Use a stainless-steel strainer or metal slotted spoon to safely and easily remove the hot potato chips. Place them on paper towels or a wire rack over a cookie sheet to drain off any excess oil. While they’re still hot, sprinkle them with salt and other seasoning. Let them cool and dig in!

How to Store Homemade Chips

Cooking chips at home allows you to make a bigger batch and enjoy them all week. To keep chips fresh and crisp:

Let them cool completely before storing them. Hot chips in an enclosed container will continue to release moisture, which, in turn, will make the chips soggy.
Use airtight containers to prevent outside moisture from changing the texture of the potato chips.
Add a small amount of uncooked rice to the bottom of the container to absorb moisture.
Store in a cool, dry place

Flavor Ideas

One of the benefits of cooking potato chips at home is that you have greater control over the flavor. Some creative seasoning ideas for homemade potato chips include: