Coconut-Oil Fry · Salted Plantain Crisps
Kerala Banana Chips
Photo: Thamizhpparithi Maari / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
They're fried exclusively in coconut oil, never a neutral vegetable oil — a choice locals say gives Kerala's chips a distinct aroma that's impossible to fake with any other fat.
Thin slices of raw green plantain are fried in coconut oil until golden and crisp, salted, and sometimes finished with turmeric or a jaggery glaze called sharkara upperi. Roadside stalls and shopfronts across Kerala sell them by the bag, freshly fried in huge batches for both daily snacking and festival trays.
Why it's made this way: The chips are a fixed part of the traditional Onam and wedding feast known as sadya, and Kerala's abundance of plantains and coconut oil made them a defining regional snack rather than just a byproduct of surplus fruit.
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