Baked Pita Chips

A few weeks ago I shared my favorite recipe for pita bread. It really is delicious stuff, perfect for filling with just about anything your heart may desire, or just eating straight up, fresh from the oven, either on its own or dipped in some homemade hummus or any other favorite dip of yours. Even though I love eating it fresh in sandwich form, I recently decided to try my hand at some homemade pita chips. I have to admit that I love Stacy's Pita Chips (so addicting!), so I wanted to see if I could make something similar at home. The answer is yes, I could, and so can you. 

It's a pretty easy thing to do, all you need is a couple of pieces of pita bread and some time. I took a few of my homemade pita, cut them into wedges, brushed with oil, sprinkled with salt and popped them in the oven. You're really just drying them out completely until they are crisp and crunchy, basically like making homemade croutons. And the options are endless, you can top them with pretty much any flavors you want; herbs, spices, cinnamon-sugar, whatever you feel like. It's totally worth trying this out, the perfect homemade snack. 

I feel kind of bad because I can't remember exactly how I baked these chips. What I do know is I hate when anything I bake or dry out in the oven takes on that (what I call) "dark" flavor. It's not burned at all, but it's heading in that direction. I like my stuff light in color and flavor. So, I usually use a low oven temperature and a lot of time. I'll probably turn my oven to 278 or 300 degrees and make sure I'm checking it every 10 to 15 minutes, to make sure it's not getting too dark. I want my pita to be completely dried through and lightly golden, but not dark. If the temperature is too high they start browning before they are dried through, and that just doesn't work. It can take some finagling, and sometimes a couple tries, before I get it completely right, but when I do it is totally worth it! So give it a try, if it doesn't turn out exactly how you were hoping don't give up, it's okay, just try it again. You don't want to know how many times I've forced myself to snack on a plate of overcooked baked chips!

Baked Pita Chips

Ingredients

• A couple pieces of pita bread (I used homemade)
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt

Directions

Start by slicing each pita into 6-8 wedges. Arrange on a baking sheet without overlapping them too much, you want the air to be able to circulate between them all. Brush both sides generously with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Pop them into a 275-300 degree oven (see discussion above) and bake, checking every 10-15 minutes until completely dried through and just beginning to brown. If they start browning too quickly, turn the oven temperature down by about 25 degrees and keep going, checking them a little more frequently to make sure they aren't getting to brown. 

When completely dried out, remove from oven and let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.