Mushroom lovers, vegans, and crunchy-savory snackers: man, do I have news for you. I was dubious, but I have just stumbled upon the cheapest, crunchiest snack of my life: mushroom chips. Not freeze-dried mushrooms (although I am obsessed with those, too)—crunchy, airy, salty, eat-them-by-the-handful mushroom chips. And all you have to do is throw a can of sliced mushrooms into your air fryer.

I actually tried to make air-fried carrot chips when I made my first batch of mushroom chips. Despite my knowledge of carrots’ high sugar content and relatively low starch content, I figured I’d give it a try, because you never know. But the carrot did as expected: the sugars caramelized and the lack of starch resulted in a bitter, chewy, vegetal imitation of beef jerky.

I was dejected, but decided to follow through with my second idea: sliced mushrooms. As you may know, I always have canned mushrooms in my cupboards (and you should too), but after the carrot debacle, I was more certain than ever that the sliced mushrooms would be shriveled, tough, unappealing bundles by the end of their time in the air fryer. I opened the basket halfway through the cooking time to check on them. Unimpressed by their diminished stature, I went to shove the basket back into my Ninja DoubleStack and couldn’t believe my ears. It was the sound of crispy edges scraping against metal. I pulled a small mushroom slice out of the fridge to cool and ate it. It was crispy as hell.

Mushroom chips have such a distinctive bubbly, crunchy crunch that I can only compare them to pork rind. Mushroom cell walls have a special compound in them: chitin. Chitin is one of the building blocks of insect exoskeletons, and it doesn’t get any crispier than that. Once the water is removed by the hot, powerful winds of the air fryer, you’re left with all the wonderfully crispy parts of the mushroom and its concentrated savory flavor.