10 Best Banana Chips in India 2021 - Buying Guide Reviewed by Chef

Banana chips are crispy slices of bananas commonly fried in oil and spices and have a salty and spicy taste. It is a very famous snack in South India and is loved by other parts of India. However, most of us have tried the basic savoury variant only. 

The preparation of banana chips is very simple; all it requires is raw banana and oil (generally coconut) to fry and salt to taste. In addition, banana chips have a high fiber content that prevents constipation, lowers body cholesterol, and controls blood sugar levels.

The process of preparing banana chips is the same. The only difference in Kerala-type sweet banana chips is that instead of salt, jaggery is melted and used. 

The benefits of adding jaggery are that it gives them a sweet taste and helps digestion of the chips. As a result, sweet banana chips are crunchy and mild-sweet in nature.

With the change in tastes and appetite of everyone, it is important to keep on moderating the old basic dishes. In the same way, banana chips have also evolved and are now available in different types of flavours such as peri peri, lime & onion, masala, Salt n Pepper, Hot & Sour, Cheese, etc. 

It's like you name it, and you have it. You can easily get banana chips of your favourite flavour, and you don't have to adjust with the basic salty ones. People who prefer to have spicy food should definitely try the peri-peri variants, and people like me who cannot have spicy food should go for cheese or creamy flavours.

Mostly coconut oil is used to prepare banana chips, as it is a south Indian snack, and they love to prepare their food in coconut oil only. 

Coconut oil gives a pleasant aroma to the banana chips, giving it a characteristic taste. It also boosts up good cholesterol and reduces the risk of heart diseases. Also, it keeps the skin and hair healthy and helps in weight loss as well.

Banana chips made from both the ripe & unripe are equally good and healthy. Ripe banana is sweet in taste because the unripe ones contain mostly starch in it, and while the banana ripens, they lose their starch and get converted into simple sugar, hence making the ripen bananas sweet.

Ripen bananas are rich in antioxidants, and unripe ones are good for gut health as they have certain probiotic bacteria. So, basically, both the banana chips are good for health but have different tastes.

People who prefer salty and savoury banana chips should go for unripe ones, and people who like to have their banana chips a bit savoury & sweet both should buy ripe banana chips.

If you want to have the genuine taste of banana chips, you must buy from the manufacturers preparing the banana chips in the same region they've established, i.e., Kerala or Tamil Nadu. This is because different brands use different ingredients to prepare their banana chips, and so is the reason that taste varies for all the banana chips. 

The local brands of Kerala and Tamil Nadu uses coconut oil and banana from their homeland, which makes their banana chips authentic and much tastier than others. So always check the ingredients and the manufacturer's address before buying your banana chips.