Homemade Banana Chips Recipe | Raw Banana Wafers (2 Ways) (2024)

Banana Chips is one snack that is liked by many people and can be easily made at home. In this post, I am sharing two such methods.

• Recipe 1 – Easy and Simple Banana Chips that can be made from any variety of raw unripe bananas.
• Recipe 2 – Kerala Style Banana Chips made with unripe nendran bananas and coconut oil.

Easy Banana Chips Recipe

These are easy and simple homemade tasty banana chips that I often make at home. Since they can be made with any variety of unripe bananas. I generally use Robusta Bananas.

These banana chips are good tea time snacks or any time snack when you want to munch something while reading a book or enjoying the monsoon rains. I generally like to have some homemade snacks at home for this purpose.

These Banana chips can also be had in fasting or Vrat during the Navratri festival.

Before the fasting period starts, you can just make a good batch and store in an air-tight container. These are fried, so obviously they will be loaded with calories.

Tips for making banana chips

1. I have sliced the banana with a mandoline in a bowl of water first. The slices are kept in the water, so that they don’t darken. Ithen drained them batch by batch, wiped them dry with clean kitchen towels and then fried. You can also directly slice the banana in the oil and fry. Though this requires some practice.
2. Also, you really need to make these slices thin, so I would suggest using a slicer which slices very thinly.
3. While frying, don’t add too much of the slices and don’t overcrowd. The slices stick to each other and don’t become crisp. So you have to fry in batches.
4. I have seasoned the banana chips with black pepper & salt. Though you can use red chili powder or your own choice of herbs and spices.
5. These banana chips can be baked too. However, I did not have great results with baked banana or potato chips. So I got back to the old method of frying them.

Keep in mind, that your fingers will also blacken when slicing the raw banana, but thats a small price you have to pay to enjoy these homemade banana chips.

I did not throw the banana peels. I soaked them in water and kept in the fridge. The next day I made a really really good banana peel thoran with them.

So whenever you use raw banana, you don’t need to throw the peels. You can make a nice stir fried dish or sabzi with them.

I already have similar snack recipes on my blog like:

• Potato chips
• French fries
• Potato wedges

Note: This Banana Chips Recipe is from the archives (August 2013) and has been republished and updated on 14th September 2020.

Please be sure to rate the recipe in the recipe card or leave a comment below if you have made it. For more vegetarian inspirations, Sign Up for my emails or follow me on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.

About Kerala Style Banana Chips

These Kerala banana chips are crispy and tasty chips made with unripe nendran bananas and coconut oil. Its the frying in coconut oil and the firm texture of the nendran bananas that sets these crispy chips apart from the regular fried Banana chips.

These banana chips are also known as ethakka upperi in Malayalam language. They are also served in the onam sadya meal.

Growing up nendran chips used to a favorite with us siblings as my dad would get them for us from his visits in Kerala. We used to call these banana wafers.

Nendran plantains are not easily available everywhere in India, so you can use other varieties of unripe raw bananas. In Kerala cuisine, raw bananas (plantain) or ripe bananas are added in many recipes.

In this recipe post, I am sharing a Detailed method to get the perfect taste and texture in the fried banana wafers. these homemade chips taste better than the store brought banana chips. They are so good and tasty.

While its easy to deep fry any dish, The method for deep frying nendran banana chips is different. Using the method as mentioned in the step by step post below, you can fry any quantity of banana chips. You can easily halve or double the recipe.

How to make Kerala banana chips

1. Rinse 500 to 550 grams or 3 unripe nendran bananas and dry them with a clean kitchen towel. The bananas have to be completely unripe with a green skin.

2. In a large bowl take 4 cups water.

3. Add 1 teaspoon turmeric powder.

4. Mix very well with a spoon.

5. Now peel the nendran plantains. Don’t throw away the peels.

6. Halve them and place them in the turmeric water for 30 to 40 minutes. They should be completely immersed in the water. Keeping the bananas in turmeric water helps to get rid of the stickiness and prevents the bananas from darkening .

7. Before frying, take ½ cup water in a bowl.

8. Add 1 tablespoon salt.

9. Mix very well. Keep the salt solution aside.

10. Now take two banana pieces and wipe them dry with a clean kitchen towel. They should be completely dry before you slice them.

Frying Kerala banana chips

11. Heat 1.5 cups coconut oil in a heavy kadai for deep frying. If you do not have coconut oil, then you can use sunflower oil or any oil for frying. Keep the flame to medium.

12. Add a thin slice of one or two banana chips in the oil. If they come up steadily on top, the oil is ready. The oil has to be medium hot, so fry on medium flame. Do not fry on low flame as then chips will absorb too much oil.

13.for slicing bananas its better to use a mandoline slicer as the slices are thin. Thin slices make for crispy chips.

14. Using the mandolin slicer directly slice over the oil. Be careful while doing so. Alternatively you can slice the banana chips with the mandolin slicer on a tray or plate and then add the slices in the oil.

15. As soon as you add the slices stir them with a slotted spoon.

16. Do not overcrowd the kadai with the banana slices while frying.

17. Begin to fry on medium flame.

18. In between, you can turn over the banana chips.

19. Fry the chips till they start turning crisp.

20. Keep on turning them and frying till they become lightly crisp. As soon as the bananas are added in oil, it takes about 5 to 6 minutes for the bananas to become lightly crisp. Timing will vary with the thickness & make of the kadai, the intensity of flame and the amount of banana chips added to oil.

21. As soon as they become lightly crisp, then sprinkle 1 teaspoon of the salt solution on the oil. For a more salty taste you can sprinkle 2 teaspoons salt water. Sprinkle salt solution all over and evenly.

22. Be careful when doing this as the oil sizzles and splutters.

23. As soon as the oil bubbles and sizzles, cover the kadai with a splatter screen or mesh screen (if you have one) or else skip. The splatter screen prevents theoil from spluttering outside.

24. After adding the salt solution, continue to fry for 2 to 3 minutes or till the sizzling and bubbling sound stops. When the bubbling sound becomes less or goes away, that time you can remove the splatter screen.

25. The banana chips have to be completely crisp and when you move them towards the side of the pan with the slotted spoon, you should hear the crispy sound.

26. With a large slotted spoon, remove the chips draining the extra oil in the kadai.

27. Place the banana chips in another sieve which is placed below a pan or bowl. This helps in draining the extra oil if any.

28. Alternatively you can also place the fried banana wafers on kitchen paper towels to remove excess oil. This way fry the banana chips in batches. For 3 nendran plantains, I fried in 3 batches. While frying the later batches, if the chips taste too salty, then you can add ½ teaspoon of the salt solution.

29. As soon as the banana wafers cool down at room temperature, place them in a jar. Cover tightly and store at room temperature.

30. Enjoy nendran banana chips as a snack.