If you’ve got a bag of regular frozen oven chips, then the instructions on the bag won’t give instructions for microwaving them.  Just because a product cooking instructions don’t tell you how to do something doesn’t always mean it can’t be done.

Pin It for Later:  Microwave Frozen Oven Chips

But if you’re in a hurry, or just need a few, or your oven’s out of action, then you might be asking “can you microwave oven chips?”  Clearly oven chips are best cooked in the oven, where they’ll turn a lovely brown and sizzle…. but there are times in your life when it’s simply not an option.

I can share with you the fact that …. I have been microwaving regular oven chips for many years.  It works.  What you don’t get is any browning.  But the frozen oven chips do cook up nicely.  It’s possible that if you microwave the chips for a lot longer than I bother with, then they will probably become crispier, but I do tend to eat them once they’re cooked “enough” and no more!

Small Batches!

This is best as a “serves one” method as microwaving oven chips is best done in small batches – I tend to microwave about 250 grams at a time – and here’s what I do.  My microwave oven is just 800 watts:

1. Put the chips into a round microwave-safe dish, the largest I’ve got so they can spread out a bit.  It’s actually a microwave dish that I saved after I’d eaten a ready-meal from a supermarket a few years ago.
2. Don’t cover the dish – the chips will lose quite a bit of moisture while cooking, I personally prefer to let this go, rather than trapping it, I believe the chips cook to be less ‘soggy’ by doing this.
3. Microwave the chips for 2 minutes on high power, then shake them – I tend to pick up the dish and “toss” them up in the air to turn them over.
4. Repeat this process a few times until they’re all hot and ready to eat – on average this will take about 8-10 minutes. I’ll often let them sit after about 5-6 minutes or so and “nearly let them get cold” just to get rid of the excess moisture, before the final 2-3 minute blast.

The chips are ready to be eaten once they’re all hot – and beyond being hot, if you continue to microwave them and monitor them, they’ll even dry out a little more, possibly even appear to brown a little as they dry and cook some more.

I will often microwave oven chips, probably twice a week!

Why Don’t You Just Buy Boxes of Micro Chips?

Personally, I don’t like those little “sticks”, I like my chips to be more “chip like”.  Additionally, finding microwave chips can be a problem in some shops -and- you really do pay through the nose simply because they’ve put them into a little box and printed the word “microwave” on it.  Microwaving regular oven chips is simply cheaper and better for me.

I pay £0.50/Kg for regular frozen oven chips – specially labelled microwave chips – McCain micro chips come in boxes of 100 grams, so for portion size I’d be having to use 2-3 boxes each time!  The cost is about £0.41/box, £4.16/Kg.  So that’s a staggering 8x the cost to get, what I think, is a lesser product.

Make Microwave Cheesy Chips

One quick snack I’ll make is to microwave oven chips and then simply sprinkle some grated cheddar on top – making a fast portion of Cheesy Chips.  Sometimes I’ll microwave the cheese-topped chips for a further 1-2 minutes to melt it and sometimes I just leave the cheese uncooked.

I hope this information is useful to you – if you’re standing there wanting a quick meal and your oven’s broken … then now’s the time you can jump for joy and just reach for those frozen chips in the freezer 🙂

Easy, hot, chips on demand!  What more could you ask for?

Can You Use Thick Steak Cut Chips?

I’ve checked, find out here: Steak Cut Chips in a Microwave

Menu Cost:

A 250 gram portion of chips (that’s chips as the main item, not just a side portion) costs £0.12.  As a side portion of chips, a suggested portion size is just 150 grams – that’s even cheaper at about £0.08.

Here are some other meals where I’ve microwaved oven chips to accompany other popular snack foods:

• Microwave Fish Fingers
• Microwave Fish Fillets in Breadcrumbs

Go for it … you know you want to.