Homemade Corn Chips - Real Recipes from Mums (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients in corn chips? ›

Ingredients. Corn, vegetable oil (corn and/or canola oil), and salt.

Several of the local Mexican restaurants have a special oven just for keeping tortilla chips fresh, crispy, and hot. They cut the tortillas into wedges and drop them into the hot oil fryer. They take these chips and drop them in the top of the oven. They come out at the bottom crisp and hot, as if they were just fried.

Most corn chips are made from blends of white and yellow corn to improve their frying characteristics. The extruded masa pieces vary in forms and sizes, being the most common strips of approximately 1.2 cm wide and 4.0 cm long. Scoops and ribbons are also widely manufactured.

Moisture and air are what cause tortilla chips to go soggy and stale, so you'll want to keep them sealed in an airtight container in a cool, dry spot, away from any sunlight. They'll last up to three months, which should be enough time for you to figure out what you're going to put on your next batch of nachos.

Fritos are made by deep-frying extruded whole cornmeal, unlike the similar tortilla chips, which are made from cornmeal and use the nixtamalization process (known as masa).

Tortilla chips are generally manufactured from coarsely ground masa from either fresh masa or dry flour that is sheeted, formed, and cut in preparation for the subsequent steps of baking, equilibrating, frying, and salting/seasoning.

While corn chips and tortilla chips are both made from corn, the corn in tortilla chips is subjected to the nixtamalization process, resulting in a milder flavor and aroma, and a less rigid texture. Tortilla chips also tend to be larger, thinner, less fatty, and less salty than corn chips.

“Baked chips offer less fat overall than regular chips, making them only slightly lower in calories, which will have a minimal impact on your overall calorie intake for the day,” McPherson said. Meanwhile, she found that baked chips generally have 25% more carbohydrates than their fried counterparts.

Best oil for frying: If you are frying corn tortillas, corn oil is the best choice. You can also use basic vegetable oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, or sunflower seed oil. You want a neutral-flavored oil with a high smoke point. Make sure the oil is hot enough.

White corn contains higher levels of starch, which make it perfect to be used in corn chips, tortillas, and other popular food products. Other types of specialty corn include: high-starch corn, high-oil corn, waxy corn, and high-lysine corn – all of which are designed for certain uses.

What was the original corn chip? ›

Today, we're featuring the corn chips that helped launch a snack empire, Fritos, “The Original” corn chips.

It is steeped overnight to develop its flavour, then stone-ground between special Mexican volcanic rocks to produce masa. This is then carefully formed into our signature round shape and then is oven-cooked and lightly fried to produce our authentic tortilla-style corn chip.

If your homemade tortilla chips are chewy, chances are the oil temperature was too low when you added the tortillas, and they ended up soaking up too much oil as they cooked. To ensure a crisp chip, hold off on frying the tortillas until your oil tests are at exactly 350°F.

Make sure that you're using stale tortillas; the fresh ones absorb the oil more readily than stale ones. Make sure your oil is hot so use the right kind of oil, and fry in small batches letting the oil “recover” in between batches.

At 180mg of sodium per serving, the chips are relatively high in salt. High sodium intake can lead to increased blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular diseases. The carbohydrate content is primarily from corn flour, which might cause a quick rise in blood sugar levels.

Are there any tests done to let us know which are the best to eat, or have the least fat?" A: Nutritionist Bronwen King responds: "Corn chips are not much lower in fat than regular potato chips. The varieties I found in my supermarket ranged from 25–30% fat (potato chips were mainly around 32%).

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