Turn Bananas Into A Crunchy Snack Using Your Air Fryer

If you're looking for more healthy snacks to include in your routine, air-fried fruits are an excellent source of essential nutrients in a delicious, and crunchy format. Unlike deep fryers, air fryers use a minimal amount of cooking oil to create crave-worthy sweet treats from your favorite fruits. While there are a myriad of fun foods to crisp up in your air fryer, one of the more unexpected of the bunch are bananas.

For those who love banana chips or even the more decadent bananas foster dessert, consider this air fryer delight a more nutritious riff on the latter. Simply start with a couple of barely ripe bananas. Slice them into thin, uniform pieces, and toss them with one to two teaspoons of your preferred oil and a quarter teaspoon of sea salt or cinnamon before loading into your preheated air fryer and cooking in single-layer batches until they are properly crisped. This should take no more than about 12 minutes at 360 degrees Fahrenheit or just under 30 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bananas are one of the fruits you should start air frying right now for their nutritional value and versatility. The beautifully caramelized chips are delicious on their own, or they can be combined with other ingredients to make a more robust snack. Get creative with different spices and seasonings to make the best air-fried banana chips to suit your personal tastes.

Air-fried banana chips are a great snack to take with you on the go or enjoy just about anytime and anywhere. Use them as a hearty topping to bulk up your breakfast overnight oats, chia pudding, or yogurt parfait. This will add just the right amount of crunchy texture to a more tender food and provide added sweetness and irresistible fruit flavor. These air fryer chips can even make a creative vessel for cottage cheese and other complementary snacking dips.

On the more indulgent side, air fryer bananas make an ideal caramelized dessert topping that you can use as a finishing touch over ice cream, banana cream pie, or even banana bread. Give your next batch of old-fashioned banana pudding a unique upgrade by mixing in air fryer banana chips alongside vanilla wafers. Similarly, fried banana chips would also make an excellent topping for a classic banana split alongside chopped peanuts, whipped cream, and cherries.

While air-fried banana chips typically call for unripe or barely ripe bananas, consider that you can also use your air fryer to ripen bananas fast to include in other banana-based desserts. For the chips, though, it's imperative to use firmer unripe bananas that will stand up to the air fryer process. There's no limit to the many ways you can enjoy this fruity and wholesome snack.