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Ready in 30 minutes, these baked butternut squash chips are delightfully crunchy. The sweet squash pairs nicely with salty Parmesan and is a great snack!
For me, most cooking falls into two categories: quick-and-easy versus food projects. Most of the time, we focus on the quick-and-easy (but still delicious and healthy!) recipes. But sometimes you just want to slow down, enjoy the process, and end up with a delicious and unique treat.
To us, food projects are things like homemade pasta or pickles – activities to pass the time on a weekend or an evening with loved ones. These butternut squash chips fall right into that category, and would be especially great for making with kids! We picked up a few butternut squashes from the farmer’s market that happened to have the perfect long thin necks for making chips.
How to make butternut squash chips
As I just mentioned, making these butternut squash chips is infinitely easier when you have squashes with long necks. This recipe uses just the necks, so really try and find the perfect squash for this recipe! To make butternut squash chips, you’ll first need to cut the neck of the squash off (save the rest for another recipe!) and then peel it. Then, you need to slice the squash very thinly using a mandoline. If you don’t have a mandoline, a sharp butcher’s knife will work—just be careful!
Once sliced, drop the squash slices into boiling water for a few minutes. This cooks the squash slightly and helps it crisp up more in the oven. Drain and rinse the slices, then pat dry and lay out on a parchment paper-lined baking tray. Brush each squash slice with some olive oil, and then sprinkle with kosher salt and Parmesan cheese. Once topped with cheese, the squash is ready to bake! Baking times may vary depending on your oven, so watch your first batch of squash chips like a hawk. Once the chips have browned, they’re ready to come out of the oven.
The sweetness of the squash balances perfectly with a little bit of grated Parmesan. These butternut squash chips are a great treat, and if you hold yourself back, you can get a couple days worth of lunches out of a batch. Though, being baked and homemade, feel free to eat as many as you like!
Thanks to Homestead Growers for the butternut squash!
Looking for more butternut squash recipes?
Here are some of our favorite butternut squash recipes on A Couple Cooks:
- Creamy Butternut Squash Risotto
- Butternut Squash Pasta
- Cozy Curried Butternut Squash Soup
- Easy Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup
- Roasted Butternut Squash
- Healthy Butternut Squash Recipe
- Healthy Butternut Squash Lentil Soup
- Vegan Butternut Squash Soup
- Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
- Easy Butternut Squash Soup
This butternut squash chips recipe is…
Vegetarian and gluten-free.
Baked Butternut Squash Chips
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
Ready in 30 minutes, these baked butternut squash chips are delightfully crunchy. The sweet squash pairs nicely with salty Parmesan and is a great snack!
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
- Cut the necks of the squashes off of the bases, and peel each neck. Using a sharp knife or mandoline, slice each squash into thin slices, about 1/8th of an inch thick.
- Drop the slices into the boiling water and boil for 2 minutes (this allows the squash to become crispy when baked). After 2 minutes, carefully drain and rinse the slices until they are cool to the touch. Pat the slices dry with a towel to remove excess water.
- Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper and place the slices on top, taking care that the slices do not touch. Brush the slices with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt, and top with finely grated Parmesan cheese.
- Bake the chips until crispy, about 15-20 minutes. Watch carefully and remove the chips once they turn brown and crispy – the timing for your oven may be shorter or longer. You may need to remove the chips in intervals, depending on the evenness of the slice thickness and oven heat. (Alternatively, you can microwave the chips; each batch takes about 10 minutes on high power.)
- Once cooled, store the chips in an airtight container for up to one week.
- Category: Snack
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Cool idea! unfortunately I’ve eaten all the butternuts our garden produced last year, but I’ve bookmarked this page. Will definitely try this out. I can imagine it’s great, and the many positive reviewers who tried it seem to agree )) Thank you for a great idea and the instructions.
Love the chips! Do you refrigerate the chips after baking or leave them out?
We leave them room temp in covered container.
What a great recipe and so easy to prepare! By the way, they aren’t not only a delicious treat on the sofa while watching TV. I made a big portion of them to share with my Spanish friends this weekend when hiking in the mountains of Mallorca. These light crisps are just as well a perfect snack to satisfy hunger on the way.
Everybody was surprised how yummy they were and wanted me to pass them the recipe by Whatsapp during our rest. So did I.
I also recommended them to have a look at your wonderful website. Surely you’ll get some new followers from Spain soon.
Thank you so much for all your splendid and original ideas.
I love butternut squash in the fall but as many ways as I have tried it, I have never tried or heard of butternut squash chips! I love to try new things so I can’t wait to try this recipe. I recently tried beet chips and I was blown away by how good they were so I bet the same thing happens here. I love that they are baked and not fried. Pinning now to try soon!
I just saw a recipe that said it takes NINE HOURS to make! Cook them on 200° for 3 hours then let cool for 6. Is this woman from
Mars or something? Who in their right mind would spend 9 hours making
These? Lmao. 30 min is more my style!
They look awesome. I need to get a mandolin. What model mandolin did you use to make these chips? Thank you.
Oh my gosh you saved my life. Where were you all this time? These taste so good! I’m on a no bread diet and this was just so awesome ^_^ I needed something to dip with.
The pictures looks fabulous. yummy butternut squash chips is something I need to try in weekend :)
I have a question you may be able to answer for me that has absolutely NOTHING to do with this recipe. At Christmas, I decided to make a vegetarian version of a salad recipe I used to make before several of us were vegetarian. It calls for Jell-O. Since Jell-O is not vegetarian, I purchased a product that is supposed to be a vegetarian substitute for the gelatin. Well, it did NOT set up very well. The salad was a bust! Is there a vegetarian version for gelatin that will ACT like Jell-O? Thanks!!
Good question! Unfortunately, we’ve never experimented much with the gelatin substitutes. Here’s an article from the Kitchn that talks about options though: http://www.thekitchn.com/vegetarian-alternatives-to-gelatin-189478
Can you recommend a dip to make to go with them. I want to take them as an appetizer to Thanksgiving get together.
We have a ranch dip you could try: https://www.acouplecooks.com/2012/11/greek-yogurt-ranch-vegetable-dip/
Make sure to watch them in the oven — everyone’s baking time seems to be a bit different! Hope you enjoy!
Just made them. Need to tweek to your own standards. Had the same issues others had. Think next time I will fry :/
Looks so yummy! Wanted to let you know that I’m doing a round up of recipes that I can’t wait to try in the near future, and I’d like to include this one. I will be listing the name of your recipe, linked back to your site, as well as your site name. A photo will bein a collage format only, so that your picture cannot be “swiped” from my site. And there will be no information about the ingredients or recipe steps so that readers must come visit you if they want to know how to make it! This will go live on the 13th; please do let me know if you don’t want me to link to you for some reason. I hope it brings you a lot of traffic!
Sounds fine to us – thanks for asking!
Lovely idea, thanks. I couldn’t get them to crisp despite trying boiled ones and non-boiled ones. I’ve found the best way to cook potato chips is 15 mins at 150°C, turn them and give them another 15 mins at 150°C and then 10 mins at 175°C (keeping an eye on them in case they’re ready sooner). So I’m going to try that way with your squash & parmesan chips idea. It stops the burnt flavours from coming in.
These are so good. thank you. It takes less than 10 min. in my microwave, so it’s best to keep an eye on them.
De-lish…. Had to cook much longer almost 45 mins but so so so good
mmmmmmmmmmm going to try tonight
Sounds so good, going to try these today!
I just made this with my daughter.. great (easy!) cooking project together!! I used a pesto w/ olive oil to brush on the chips instead of plain olvie oil.. delish!! I could not get the crispy-ness just right, some got burnt, others were still soft, but they tasted good jst the same!
Great! Pesto olive oil sounds delicious. We did find that some chips took a bit longer than others; hopefully you got mostly crisp and not so many burnt :) Thanks for writing!
These chips look great, especially with a bit of cheese on top! I’ll have to give them a try. :)
These are delicious! I made them to go along with our dinner. I had to cook them for a little longer than 20 minutes to get them crispy, but they were great! Definitely going to make again. =)
Yum, Alex. Thanks so much for posting this amazing-looking chip recipe. Being on low carb, and wanting to stay thin, this will help. : ) Will try this weekend.
I’ve tried making these twice, with the boiling and without, but I can’t get the squash and zucchini to get crispy. They are soft in the middle but start to burn on the outside, and I have to keep them in the oven for about an hour for this to happen. What could be wrong? I don’t think it’s my oven because I have no problems when cooking anything else. Thanks.
That’s weird! Sorry they didn’t work out. Did you pat them dry after the boil? The only other thing I can think of is that they might be too thick. I’m sorry! :(
Oh my gosh these are SO good!! I cut mine a little thick so they took a really long time to bake but they will satisfy any chip craving and so much healthier! Thanks for the recipe!
A mandolin is great but watch your fingers. I was making slices really fast and sliced the side of my thumb.
I recently made baked parnsip chips and they turned out pretty good — can’t wait to try these!
Help! I love this idea, but when I par-boiled they all fell apart. What am I doing wrong? Boil too long, to short, cutting to think or thin? I’d appreciate any tips!
Oh no! I think that they probably got boiled to long. You just want to keep them in the water long enough to remove some starch — but not so much that they get mushy. Maybe they were too thin, also?
I’m worried that different ages and varieties of butternut squash may require fine tuning. I know from the baking side that they all require lots of attention!
Good luck – hope they work out for you!
When I’ve tried making veggie chips they usually turn rubbery in the middle and almost burned on the edges. So I’m going to try the par-boiling! do you think the boiling it will work with potatoes and turnips? That’s what’s in my fridge at the moment and I need to use them up!
Thanks for the post!
I have definitely seen people use this method for potato fries. I’m not sure about turnips — but it can’t hurt to try!
Repinned! Thanks for the great looking chips and the exact method you used!
I am SO looking forward to trying these. I bet I could do these in the dehydrator as well (although they’d be slightly less crispy). Thanks for the great idea!
I like the sound of baked butternut chips!
Love these and the kids loved these! I made these twice using different type oils just to see the difference. I used Butter flavored Grapeseed oil the second time because it has so much higher of a cooking temp. Olive oil burns off once you start cooking it above around 170 degrees and it even let’s off cancerous smoke. Grapeseed oil can withstand up to 450 degrees. My chips turned out so more flavorful and crispy using the Grapeseed oil. Just a tip for any high tip cooking.
I’ve had mixed results with baking butternut chips. I’ll have to try the par-boiling step next time. Thanks for the tip!
What a fantastic “chip”!!! I love this!
These look amazing!! I love veggie chips but had never heard of making with butternut squash! Usually with squash I just split, bake and top with cheese – but maybe I should branch out a bit! LOVE squash so much!
This is such an awesome idea–definitely pinning it! I didn’t realize that you could bake butternut squash and actually get it to crisp up like this. Thanks for sharing your recipe :)
Yay, I was waiting for this! Peeling those squashes is a pain in the butt, but it is worth it. Such a great flavor. Thanks for sharing!
Peeling butternut squash is much easier, I’ve found, if I use a flat cheese slicer. It goes pretty quickly :).
This is SUCH an awesome idea! They look delicious, especially with Parmesan over top. Can’t wait to get a butternut squash to try this out :D
How fun! I love that you tossed a lil Parm in there. Awesome!
These look fantastic! I don’t know why I’ve never thought to bake squash chips before – brilliant.
These look AMAZING! The perfect crispy snack! And topped with freshly grated Parmesan! PERFECT. Thanks for sharing such a great recipe!
Happy Wednesday!
Cheers,
Christi
I made roasted butternut squash last night, but always find myself wrestling with it to cut it up. I think I need a mandolin!
They are pretty fun! We don’t use it every day, but when we do it is SO worth it.
These butternut squash chips look very tasty. Next time I make butternut squash (which will be soon), I’m using this recipe!
This look so good! I’m going to try this soon. I also love to make butternut squash ‘fries’. Peel and cut the squash into the shape of french fries, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake at 400 degrees until browned and crisped to your liking. (can turn it up to 425 degrees at the end to crisp a little more.) So good. And the leftovers re-heat well in the toaster oven.
Those sound good to! Do they get crisp all the way through?
LOVE this idea! Butternut squash is a favorite veggie of mine, and enjoying it in crunchy chip form sounds fantastic.
Sooo yummy!! Love this idea!
These look delicious! I love butternut squash and the idea of turning them into chips sounds so fun. Definitely a great weekend food project :)
Thanks! The butternut squash flavor really comes through in the chips – they are quite unique!