Air Fried Plantains
I LOVE plantains. I can’t believe I never gave them the time of day until I did my first round of Whole30 in January 2018. I made plantains a ton that month and I still do, but I used to smoke up the whole apartment with all that oil and a somewhat long cooking time. How I used to make fried plantains without evacuating the whole apartment building I’ll never understand. Now that I have my air fryer and know what I know, I know that I’ll never go back to pan frying them!
I know that tostones are traditionally made with green (unripe) plantains. I think I kind of combined two different traditional plantain recipes in THIS recipe, but it worked for me and I loved it so I decided to share it here. I made this side dish with a yellow/brown plantain. It was definitely overripe so it was very sweet, but I still wanted to fry it twice like tostones are, so I did! If I am offending the food of your ancestors by doing this, I do apologize. But it’s dang tasty so you’d best believe I’ll do it again. I’m sure this recipe would work just as well with green plantains, but you might need to adjust the cooking time slightly to account for the unripe plantains you’re starting with.
My sister and I took our mom on a cruise over New Year’s last year, 2018-2019. We went to Cozumel, Belize, and we were supposed to go to Honduras but that’s a long story and we ended up in Cozumel twice. Thank you Carnival, you rock stars. Anyway, when we went to Belize we decided we wanted to see some ruins so we chose an excursion that brought us to Xunantunich. It was a LONG ride from the cruise port to the ruins, but luckily we were on an air conditioned coach bus and had two fabulous tour guides. We got to see a lot of the country since the ruins were actually on the border of Guatemala, and we learned a lot about Belize on the way there thanks to our amazing tour guides. If you have a cruise scheduled to Belize and you’re looking for something to do, I highly recommend this excursion. Will cruises even exist after coronavirus? The way things are looking I’d say it’s not likely. Which makes me sad for the people of Belize since they did such a wonderful job. ANYWAY, when we got off the bus at the ruins there were a couple of street vendors outside. One caught my eye because they were selling “fried bananas.” I quickly learned that they were what I call “fried plantains” so I bought a ton of bags because I was starving and hadn’t eaten yet that day. They were SO good. I ate several bags on my walk up to the ruins and I’m glad I did because otherwise I would have been downright hangry. As in many central and south American countries, the people of Belize eat a late lunch around 2 pm or later. There was no way I was making it that long.
These air fried plantains bring me back a little bit. Seriously, if you ever find yourself in Belize, Xunantunich and street vendor plantains are worth at least one of your days there, if not more. Until then, make these to hold you over!
Air Fried Plantains
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Cut the skin off of the plantain and slice diagonally into ½ thick pieces. Place in a single layer in your air fryer basket, leaving space in between. Brush the top of each plantain lightly with some coconut oil and sprinkle with some sea salt to taste.
- Air fry at 375° F for 5 minutes.
- Use a spatula to carefully remove the plantains from the air fryer basket and place on a large plate. Use a small flat bottomed cup to crush the plantains one at a time until they are about half as thick. Carefully place each plantain back on the air fryer rack and brush the tops again with a little more coconut oil.
- Air fry at 375° F for 3 minutes more, until browned all over and crisp around the edges. Serve hot and enjoy! I like to serve mine with eggs and a vegetable for breakfast.
