The DH was making himself a can of Juanitas Chicken Pozole and decided to add the broken tortilla chips at the bottom of the bag. He added a loose 1.5 - 2 cups and heated the soup on low for 45 minutes to one hour.
The result was a thick tasty pozole stew. What a good use for the bits.
By R Barbara from Bremerton, WA
This page contains the following solutions.
When you get to the bottom of the chip bag and the tortilla chip bags there are always broken chips in the bottom. The broken potato chip pieces make wonderful casserole toppings, filler in meatloaf, coating for chicken and other meats for frying, etc.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
What do you do with the broken corn chips at the bottom of the bag? I'm sick of throwing them out into the compost. Sometimes half the bag seems to be crumbs. I've tried crushing them and adding them to my bread baking, but I don't like the final result. Any reasonable suggestions welcome. I'm basically a whole foods cook and this is about the closest I get to prepared food.
By susan cantin from Canada
I make Frito Chili Pie. It doesn't matter that the chips are crumbled up.
Frito Chili Pie
fritoes
chili
cheese
onion
Layer in ingredients into a casserole dish (size depends upon size you want to make). Bake in oven at 350 degrees F. until hot all the way through. My family loves it.
You can also use them on top of your favorite casserole dishes in place of bread crumbs! I use what I have on hand.
When my son was in primary school, the class made potato chip cookies. Unfortunately I don't have the recipe anymore (after 25+ years I don't know why!), but I'm sure it would be available somewhere on the internet. Hope this helps a little bit.
I grind them up in my food processor and use them like bread crumbs for breading fish and chicken.
Make chilaquiles. Heat taco sauce in a skillet and stir in the broken chips. When all is hot, top with a little cheese and allow it to melt. This works even if the chips are stale.
I know you're asking about recipes but I set mine out for the birds but you could also try using them in a salad instead of croutons ;-)
We have a restaurant here in Harrisburg, PA that serves a Cowboy Crunch burrito using the last bits in the chip bag:
12" tortilla, refried beans, brown rice (or white), meat (buffalo, chicken or steak), cheese, veggies (lettuce, toms, onion, jalapenos), Ranch dressing and chip crumbs. Fab!
Thank you one and all for these suggestions. There are so many. I think I have two winners: Jazalay and Cumberland. I am going to try these two first. :)
Eat them! That's is they aren't stale... if they are give them to birds, hand them to your kids to feed the birds at the park. Great for families to have fun!
Have some tortilla chips that are a little stale or some crumbs left in the bottom the bags? Here are some ideas for using those chips. Post your ideas.
Don't throw out those last few little pieces of tortilla chips left in the bag - put them in a plastic bag and freeze them for recipes. They work great in Mexican casseroles or tortilla soup!
By Susan
Mom always used to save the plain potato chip crumbs for topping on tuna fish casserole. We thought it was a treat.
Chips can go rancid because of the grease or oil used in cooking them. Either save them in the freezer or use them up immediately. patsAZ
I put throw them into any Mexican-style soup or salad just before eating.
Yummy taco salad ~ grab some lettuce a little leftover meat ( crumbled beef, chicken or even pork). I even love to add leftover rice & then sprinkle with cheese & tomatoes.
A meal I look forward to is using the crumbs from tortilla chips for breakfast (you could have this for any meal, though). I add the tortilla chip crumbs to beaten eggs - about a quarter-cup of crumbs to each egg but you can experiment for the ratio you prefer. More chips-to-egg ratio is a drier dish. I like to let the crumbs/egg mixture soak for about 5 minutes but you might prefer to let it soak longer or not at all. To that mixture I might add cheese, onions, bacon, ham, sausage, mushrooms, jalapenos, green onions, bell pepper, feta, tomatoes or just about anything else you might like. Dump everything in a medium hot skillet that has been greased with either butter, olive oil or bacon fat and cook to your desired level of doneness.
A short time in the microwave can help make stale chips taste better. This is a page about how to refresh stale chips and crackers.
Nachos are a favorite recipe that uses tortilla chips, but there are other creative ways to use them. This is a page about recipes using corn chips.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
Any uses for those leftover 1/2 bags of potato/tortilla chips that NO ONE will touch after 2 days? Remember, camouflage is the KEY word here!
