Tortilla Chips

When you can’t go to the store to buy corn chips, but you need nachos… you get crafty and make your own.

Recipe

Tortilla Chips

• *1/2 bag soft corn tortillas

• 2 tbsp. lime juice

• 1/4 cup canola oil

• *1/2 tsp salt n pepper (each)

Process

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cut the tortillas into sixths by cutting them once through the middle, and then twice diagonally through the center cut.

3. Lay the cut tortillas flat onto a baking sheet.

4. Whisk the lime juice and canola oil together in a bowl.

5. *Use a spoon or a basting brush (if you want to be fancy about it) to coat the tortillas with oil as evenly as you can.

6. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

7. Use a spatula or tongs to flip each tortilla over. Brush them with the liquid mix and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

8. Bake for 6 minutes, until they are lightly golden-brown and (mostly) crispy.

9. Flip the tortillas and bake for another 6 minutes. Bake them until the other sides are lightly golden-brown and mostly crispy.

10. *After removing from the oven, place tortilla chips on a cooling rack until they are fully cooled.

11. *Store in an air-tight container for 3-4 days.

Notes

• 1/2 bag soft corn tortillas - White or yellow tortillas, doesn’t matter. If you need more chips or fewer chips, double or cut the recipe as you need.

• Salt n Pepper - I used the absolute basics as a starting point for flavor and spice - but don’t you worry, I’ll be adapting the crap out of this recipe and will be coming up with a number of spice options. Sweet and spicy, cinnamon sugar, smoky garlic…be on the lookout.

• Spoon or basting brush - You bet I used a regular spoon for this because I don’t actually own a basting brush. But I can definitely see how that would make the process of coating the tortillas a bit easier. I used the spoon to drizzle the oil mix over the chips as evenly as I could without drenching them, and then used the back of the spoon to schmear the oil across them.

• Cooling rack - Placing the chips on a cooling rack after coming out of the oven gives them room to cool down individually. If you put them all into a bowl immediately, the heat from them all together would make them lose that delightful crispiness.

• Airtight container, 3ish days - These chips stayed crispy even after that, but after about 3 days, I could really tell the staleness was setting in. But on the bright, waste-less-food side, they really just became more like super crunchy pita chips, still very much worth eating. I just wanted to give you the timeframe of perfect tortilla chips.

My spirit needed nachos, and I was thrilled that I could abide with what I had in my pantry.