Marmite Sweet Potato Chips (Baked or High Raw)

Marmite.  Love it or hate it?

I love it.

I slather Marmite on toast.  I mix Marmite and peanut butter together and eat it on celery. I’ve spread it on a corn tortilla and baked it until crisp in the oven. Love it!

Marmite is thick, has a very salty flavor and, for some, is definitely an acquired taste.  This dense, almost meaty flavored condiment made the list in Ginny Messina’s excellent post on Umami:

It’s been dubbed the “fifth taste” (the other four being sweet, sour, bitter, and salty). Discovered over 100 years ago, umami has more recently become a respectable area of research. The taste/experience of umami is imparted by high levels of the amino acid glutamate. While certain vegetables have umami, it’s especially abundant in protein-rich animal foods.

Read the entire post – it’s another tool in your arsenal to remain Vegan for Life!

What’s in the wholly natural Marmite?  Yeast Extract, Salt, Carrot & Onion Extract, Spice Extracts, enriched with B Vitamins – Niacin (B3), Thiamin (B1), Riboflavin (B2), and Cyanocobalamin (B12).

B-12, baby!

While some say Australian Vegemite and Marmite are the same thing, I think not Vegemite ingredients: Yeast Extract, Salt, Caramel, Malt Extract, Natural Flavor.

A few weeks ago I saw a mention of Marmite potato chips on their Facebook page.

SOURCE

I immediately started searching to find a local store that carried the crisps or an online source to place an order. I couldn’t find them anywhere in the U.S. I wrote about my obsession on my own Facebook page and was told that Walker’s Marmite Crisps weren’t vegan.  Gasp!

Clearly, I needed to make them for myself.

I decided to try a baked and a high raw version of my very own Marmite Sweet Potato chips. Why “high” raw and not raw? Because I read this about how it’s made

While the process is secret, the general method for making yeast extract on a commercial scale is to add salt to a suspension of yeast, making the solution hypertonic, which leads to the cells shrivelling up; this triggers “autolysis“, in which the yeast self-destructs. The dying yeast cells are then heated to complete their breakdown… SOURCE

Raw readers – your thoughts?

I began by slicing sweet potatoes with my scary but awesome mandoline.

Marmite is really, really thick. And really, really salty. I decided to dilute the Marmite by adding hot water to the Vitamix and slowly drizzling it into the blender.

I added apple cider vinegar to the blender and then poured the foamy liquid over the sweet potatoes.

I tossed the slices and marinade with my hands (it loses the foamy-ness and becomes a dark liquid).  After tossing to make sure that each slice was covered with the marinade I set the bowl aside for 15 minutes.

Then I loaded up a cookie sheet (for baked chips) and the dehydrator trays (for raw chips).

The baked chips took about 35 minutes (1/8 inch slices) at 400F.

The raw, at 125F, 18 hours.

I love these chips!  My omnivore husband – not a huge Marmite fan – loved these chips!  The raw both won the taste-test, though.

Okay, finally, the recipe!

If you want a thicker marinade, I would suggest playing with it.  Cut the water to 1/4 cup or increase the Marmite another tablespoon.  Baking time will vary depending upon the thickness of your potato slices; if you opt for thinner than 1/8 inch, it will require less baking time.

So, Marmite fans, play with this recipe and let me know what you think!

Tagged as: b-12, b12, baked, marmite, raw, special diet, sweet potato chips, umami, vegan