When’s the final time you selected your potato chips? The reply is: by no means! You don’t select potato chips! Potato chips select you. They arrive for you in some unspecified time in the future across the first of your grandma’s annual Labor Day barbecues that you just keep in mind and then you definitely’re drawn, moth to flame, to the identical [redacted, crunch-less bite-sized paper bits] every time you end up within the chip aisle.

*Whispers* It doesn’t should be this manner… The world of potato chips is huge and nuanced. You may change issues in your kids by making higher selections/choosing up a distinct bag of chips for this yr’s gathering. Be!! The change!! You need to see!!!!! On this planet!!!!!!

And so, out of this deep-rooted sense for public service, the Severe Eats crew lately pulled collectively 9 manufacturers of original-flavor (a.okay.a. plain, unflavored, however not unsalted)  potato chips you are more likely to discover in your native grocery store and methodically, empirically, scientifically! tasted its approach by way of all of them in a quest to establish the perfect. And we beloved each minute of it…whereas complaining all through that we should always’ve made tuna melts to go along with these piles of chips and in addition that  salt & vinegar is a greater time than plain chips!

The Contenders

• Cape Cod Authentic Kettle Cooked Potato Chips 
• Deep River Snacks Potato Chips, Kettle Cooked, Authentic Salted
• Hal’s Authentic Taste Chips
• Herr’s Potato Chips, Crisp ’n Tasty
• Kettle Model Sea Salt Potato Chips
• Lay’s Basic Potato Chips
• Siete Sea Salt Potato Chips
• Utz Authentic Potato Chips
• Clever Potato Chips, Golden, Authentic

The Standards

A very good unique potato chip is—and let me be the primary one to say this—crunchy. Yeah, I mentioned crunchy earlier than I mentioned “potato-y!” The crunch and the salt matter greater than the potato of all of it!! You’ll know you’ve encountered a top quality potato chip when the next sequence of occasions happen, precisely on this order:

1. You and the individual throughout the desk hear a crunch upon first chew. 
2. You instantly know that chip received’t be your final on this sitting. 
3. You see or really feel no must wipe your palms of grease earlier than you attain for a second chip.
4. You eat the second chip; you let slip involuntarily, from the bowels of one thing deep and unknown within you: “Oh god, I’m in love with these.” The individual throughout the desk from you confirms: “Oh god, I do know, identical.”
5. You unwittingly slap at a pile of napkins after chip 4 to clear that scrumptious afterthought of grease.
6. You discover that 12 fluid ounces of a soda within the neighborhood quenches you precisely of your thirst.

Anyway! To degree the enjoying subject of ALL AVAILABLE CHIPS, we zeroed in on unique taste, non-ridged potato-only chips. No different veggies, no different flavors—simply potatoes and simply salt (and the oil the potatoes had been fried in, after all). If you find yourself liking this specific batch of nonsense, we’ll transfer on to different (higher) flavors and textures. Simply say the phrase, my indignant, DM-happy sweets!!

Just a few notes on our total findings earlier than we get on to the rankings: This group had a really clear-cut desire for a kettle-cooked, sea-salted chip. Whereas I’ve listed the components for every model, I couldn’t correlate any specific frying oil to “a greater chip,” although it’s price noting that the one occasion of avocado oil within the whooole bunch landed itself on the very backside. I discovered nostalgia performed much less of a job than it appears to have in earlier assessments, which was enjoyable!! Possibly everybody is usually feeling higher about issues? Hahahahahah!!

OK. No matter. The chips! 

The Rankings

Kettle Model Sea Salt Potato Chips, 4.16/5

Think about a potato chip being so daring as to style like a…potato! Et voila: these!! Every taster remarked on the pervasive-in-a-nice-way potato taste, oftentimes noting in subsequent choices that that very same essential taste was missing. These kettle-cooked chips had been substantive, barely greasy (Amanda mentioned she’d anticipate to need to wash her palms after a handful of them), and LARGE. The latter prompted Genevieve to put in writing in her notes: “These are virtually the scale of my palm! (Is that this Kettle??)” Basic Genevieve. Basic potato chips!

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oils (canola and/or sunflower and/or safflower and/or soybean), sea salt.

Hal’s New York Authentic Taste Chips, 3.83/5

Maybe the one occasion through which the instantly notable presence of oil felt right reasonably than icky. They had been “oily, however along with the tremendous crispiness, it’s not a nasty factor,” wrote one tester, whereas one other known as the oil “good.” Now that I’m rereading these notes, I see no feedback within the realm of saltiness or taste, so…we’re going to name Hal’s (additionally kettle-cooked!) a unbelievable possibility for individuals who prefer to break folks within the neighborhood’s lives through satisfying crunching and in addition don’t have time for greater than a fast hands-to-pants wipe.

Elements: Potatoes, sunflower oil, sea salt

Deep River Snacks Potato Chips, Kettle Cooked, Authentic Salted, 3.61/5

Our first heavy-weight contender! These chips, additionally kettle-cooked, didn’t soften after the primary snap–they had been substantial sufficient that you just needed to chew somewhat bit. They had been appropriately salty, impressively crispy, and, once more, fairly thick (…to the purpose that it was the one cause I might pinpoint these not rating greater). Even nonetheless: This was the solely chip of the bunch editors remarked they stored coming again to.

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oil (incorporates one among extra of the next: corn, cottonseed, sunflower, or canola oil), sea salt

Herr’s Potato Chips, Crisp ’n Tasty, 3.56/5

Distinctly savory, these morsels!! Like, to the purpose that “They barely remind me of a potato?” Kelli wrote. Genevieve even in contrast the expertise to consuming a cured egg yolk, which mirrored in nearly everybody’s numbers. Herr’s (once more once more once more: kettle-cooked!) are a extra fascinating and nuanced possibility for these in search of taste above crunch and grease. That is additionally the primary look of normal outdated salt within the batch; the top-seeded picks known as out “sea salt” on their labels. 

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oil (corn, cottonseed, sunflower), salt.

Lay’s Basic Potato Chips, 3.16/5

You may take a horse to water, however…nope, that’s not it. You may educate an individual to fish, however…woof, no, not that one both. How does the saying go? “You may suppose you’ve put sufficient potato chips in entrance of a bunch of absurdly detail-oriented meals nerds that they will not have the ability to ID Lay’s, however…they may see proper by way of your ruse as a result of Lay’s was the golden-ish yellow, oil-slicked, snackable sog of their youths?” Yeah, that’s the one. (OK, in all seriousness: Right here we enter not kettle-cooked territory, in addition to a definite absence of sea salt!! They’ll each make a return towards the tip, however…we’ll cross that bridge once we come to it.) (Nailed that final one!!) Except for clocking these as Lay’s immediately, the group did not have loads to say about these of their tasting suggestions sheets.

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oil (sunflower oil, and/or corn oil, and/or canola oil), salt.

Clever Potato Chips, Golden, Authentic, 3.15/5

These tasted like Lay’s, however like if Lay’s had made a last-minute resolution to throw the craveable-yet-manageable greasiness of their product out the window? Extra helpfully, Amanda wrote: “These tasted like a processed meals {that a} ‘90s well being PSA would warn towards.” Helen famous an amazing oily aftertaste. This is sensible, as this was the chip with probably the most potential oils concerned, per its ingredient record (“a number of” of at least  5 totally different oils).

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oil (incorporates a number of of the next: corn, cottonseed, sunflower, soybean or canola oil), salt.

Utz Authentic Potato Chips, 3/5

To look at these is to suppose you’ve laid eyes on the Utopian Ideally suited of Potato Chips. And…they had been very good!! I believe all of us simply hope that once we are re-defining “the proper potato chip” (after society collapses and we start rebuilding once more, and so forth., and so forth.) that we’ll need mentioned chips to style contemporary! And salty!

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oil (incorporates a number of of the next: cottonseed oil, corn oil, and/or sunflower oil), salt.

Cape Cod Authentic Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, 2.83/5

The group’s tasting notes for these practically identically mirrored these of their Deep River ones. The excellence was that these (that are kettle-cooked, btw!) had been even thicker, which helped crystallize that our desire is a thinner-cut chip! I’d go forward and duplicate/paste everybody’s pithy lil notes from this one, however all of them could be boiled right down to: “Wow! Crunchy! Wow! Too thick?”

Elements: Potatoes, vegetable oils (canola and/or sunflower and/or safflower and/or  soybean), sea salt

Siete Sea Salt Potato Chips, 2.56/5

Contrastingly, the kettle-cooked Siete chips had been so skinny they virtually melted, prompting everybody to touch upon their sogginess. There was a distinguished grease to the entire expertise, enveloping an in any other case very good potato taste. That is the one one of many batch that used avocado oil. Associated: I’m including “avocado oil style check” to my Q3 pitch record. 🙂

Elements: Potatoes, avocado oil, sea salt

Our Testing Methodology

All style assessments are carried out with manufacturers utterly hidden and with out dialogue. Tasters style samples in random order. For instance, taster A might style pattern 1 first, whereas taster B will style pattern 6 first. That is to stop palate fatigue from unfairly giving anybody pattern a bonus. Tasters are requested to fill out tasting sheets rating the samples for varied standards. All information is tabulated and outcomes are calculated with no editorial enter as a way to give us probably the most neutral illustration of precise outcomes attainable.