Flour Vs Corn: Which Tortillas Are Best For Oven-Baked Tortilla Chips?

Tortilla chips are a mainstay of snack foods and a favorite when served at Mexican restaurants. If you like to do things yourself, you can easily make tortilla chips in the oven at home. Marc Marrone, executive chef at Arriba Abajo Rooftop Cantina in Austin, Texas, spoke exclusively with Chowhound to explain the best way to bake tortilla chips, which can be less messy than frying them.

If you need to decide between flour or corn tortillas, chef Marrone says he "[prefers] corn for this; flour breaks down and doesn't hold up as well for chips." Corn tortillas come out of the oven crispier than flour tortillas and the flavor of corn is a bit nutty. However, there are other reasons for choosing corn, including tradition. 

Corn tortillas have a long history in Mexico, where Mesoamerican people soaked corn kernels in an alkaline solution, cooked them to remove the shell, then made the result into cornflour or dough. This dough was shaped and cooked over a fire to make tortillas. Though these tortillas weren't originally made into chips, using corn to make tortillas became a tradition. Now, Mexican restaurants often make chips with corn tortillas. Knowing the flavor of store-bought chips may provide you with a basis for taste-testing your own homemade chips, so we ranked 15 store-bought tortilla chips to help you compare.

There's a way to maintain the flavor and texture when you bake corn tortilla chips: Using a small amount of oil applied lightly to the chips before baking. Additionally, Marc Marrone has two more tips: "[Get] an even coating on the corn tortilla before baking, [and use] a nice, low, even heat to dry the chips out while baking." This helps you create good texture for your tortilla chips. You might even get better results from baking your chips than you would find in the brand of tortilla chip we ranked the best for taco night.

Baking corn tortilla chips takes about 15 to 20 minutes, including prep time. Using quality tortillas, a thin coating of neutral oil, and sea salt, place the wedges of tortillas on a baking sheet in one layer and bake them for about eight to 12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. You can use extra, unused tortillas, or even broken ones, to make homemade tortilla chips. This ties into the practical reason tortilla chips were invented in 1940s Los Angeles: to find a profitable way to reduce food waste in commercially produced tortillas. By making them at home, you follow in the spirit of the iconic snack's inventor.