Homemade Baked Pita Chips

Back-to-school shopping. The August ritual that every parent dreads and every child endures and nobody enjoys except the stores that charge $45 for a backpack and $12 for a pack of highlighters. Three kids. Three supply lists. Three backpacks. One paycheck. The math of back-to-school shopping used to be: impossible. The math used to involve choosing between new shoes and new notebooks and deciding which child's feet had grown more and which child could survive another semester with the old backpack. That math is over. The math of back-to-school 2026 is: I can afford all of it. Every backpack. Every highlighter. Every pair of shoes. The "I can afford it" is: still new. Still strange. Still the sentence that doesn't quite fit in my mouth. But I can afford it. And the affording is: the distance from Antioch to Gallatin Pike measured in school supplies.

Chloe: high school. The words that I've been dreading since she was born. CHLOE IS GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL. She's enrolled at Maplewood High School — the same school in East Nashville that she'll attend for four years, the school that will see her transform from a fourteen-year-old with a DSLR and a recipe journal into an eighteen-year-old who applies to colleges and leaves. The leaving is: four years away. The four years are: not enough. The four years will go fast. I know this because the first fourteen went fast — so fast that I blinked and the girl who used to need me to reach the stove now reaches above me and makes hollandaise and the hollandaise is: the evidence that time is a thief and the thief is also a gift and the gift is: a girl who grows.

Jayden: sixth grade. Middle school. The transition that every parent of a preteen circles on the calendar with a red marker and a prayer. Jayden is going to John Trotwood Moore Middle School — a bigger building, different teachers for every class, a locker combination, a schedule that rotates. The boy who said "fine" and closed his door is about to enter the ecosystem that turns boys into either men or problems. I am praying for man. I am bracing for problems. I am buying him a new backpack (not orange — gray, because Jayden is entering the phase where orange is his brother's thing and his thing is: neutral, serious, the colors of a boy who is trying to be taken seriously). The gray backpack is: the uniform of adolescence. The gray is: the door between ten and teenage.

Elijah: first grade. The promotion from kindergarten to first grade, from the small chairs to the slightly-less-small chairs, from half-day orientation to all-day learning. Elijah is ready. Elijah was born ready. The boy who danced as a leaf and plays one chord on an orange guitar and signed the cat and ate his first mango is ready for first grade the way a rocket is ready for launch: pointed upward, full of fuel, making a lot of noise. His backpack: orange. Obviously. The only orange backpack at Target. I know because we checked every aisle.

Dinner: chicken strips and french fries. The back-to-school-shopping reward meal. The meal that says: we survived Target, we survived the shoe store, we survived the school supply aisle where I said "no" to the $35 calculator and "yes" to the $12 one and Jayden looked at me with the wounded expression of a boy who believes his mathematical future depends on a $23 price difference. The chicken strips are: crispy. The fries are: salty. The meal is: the fuel for the last weeks of summer before the real thing begins.

We made it home with every backpack, every highlighter, and every pair of shoes — and the only thing anyone wanted was something crispy and salty and fast. I wasn’t going to argue with that. These homemade baked pita chips came together while the kids dumped out their new supplies on the kitchen table and Elijah wore his orange backpack around the house like he was already on his way somewhere. Crispy, golden, and ready in twenty minutes: exactly the right ending to a day that asked a lot of all of us.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 14 minutes | Total Time: 19 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

4 pita rounds (white or whole wheat)
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Optional: 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano or za’atar

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 375°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Cut the pitas. Stack the pita rounds and cut each one into 8 triangular wedges, like you’re cutting a pizza. If your pitas are thick, carefully split each wedge open at the fold so the chips bake through and crisp evenly.
Season. Spread the pita wedges in a single layer across both baking sheets. Drizzle evenly with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and black pepper. Toss gently with your hands to coat, then spread back into a single layer.
Bake. Bake for 12–15 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the chips are golden brown and crisp at the edges. Watch closely in the last few minutes — they go from perfect to too dark quickly.
Cool. Remove from the oven and let the chips cool directly on the baking sheets for 5 minutes. They will continue to crisp as they cool. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Homemade Baked Pita Chips — The Crispy, Salty Reward After a Very Long Day at Target