We take potatoes very seriously here at Cup of Jo, so we enlisted Casey Elsass — recipe developer and food writer extraordinaire — to help us find the best potato chips out there. Casey has worked on over 20 cookbooks, and when it comes to party snacks, no one does it better (this is the man behind Mosaic Jell-O and hot-fudge gifts). With his finely tuned palate, he set out to rank five grocery-store chip brands. And the winner surprised us all…
The Contenders:
Five widely available potato-chip brands — original salted flavor only. I also nixed ridged chips or any specialty varieties.
The Methodology:
As with our last taste test, I set out blind samples, each numbered and coded to a key that I kept to myself. Sliced cucumber and plain sparkling water were available for palate-cleansing between tastes. In addition to ranking the samples, I asked Casey to weigh in on saltiness, crunch, and potato flavor.
The Duds
5th Place: Utz
4th Place: Zapp’s
We’ll start with the bad news: Both Utz and Zapp’s were total flops. “Utz has potato flavor and nothing else,” Casey said. “Not much salt, and it’s pretty dry — like a potato cracker.” The Zapp’s chips were deemed very stale-tasting, even from a freshly opened bag. “They taste like they’ve been sitting out,” said Casey. “Also, for me, they’re too crunchy.” The good news for both these brands is that we all love them for their other work: Zapp’s Voodoo chips are one-of-a-kind, and no one does pretzels like Utz. We’ll let them stick to that, and leave the potato-chip business to our top three, which are…
The Saltiest
3rd Place: Wise
This one seemed a little too salty on first bite: “My dream chip is salty, but salt should be a secondary flavor. With this one, it’s immediate.” But the Wise chips grew on Casey (and on me — though I kept my thoughts to myself during the proceedings!). It was the one he kept coming back to reconsider and was a strong contender for second place. Until…
The Silver Medalist
2nd Place: Boulder Canyon
Who knew?! These chips have been around for 30 years, but are still comparative newbies in the century-old American potato-chip industry. “Mmm!” Casey said, visibly surprised when he first tried them. “This one’s very light — crispy, but in a snappy way. And it has a good balance of potato and salt.” These chips were so good that Casey very nearly gave Boulder the crown. He did a palate cleanse, then a side-by-side comparison with his other top pick, just to be sure. And in the end, although Boulder chips were excellent, the winner, no question, was…
The Slam-Dunk Favorite
1st Place: Lay’s
“Yes, this is it,” Casey said. “They have perfect crunch, and the flavor progression is ideal: oil, potato, salt. They look so light that you expect them to be too airy, but the crispiness is spot on.” After sampling them, Casey suspected they might be Lay’s, specifically because of that subtle perfection. “If you’ve ever been to Italy, the big thing there is ‘aperitivo,’ a before-dinner ritual, where you have your spritz and some little snacks. And I’m almost positive that everyone in Italy is serving Lay’s.” While I cannot confirm Casey’s Aperitivo Theory, I believe it. I always thought of Lay’s as oil-heavy, but this test proved me wrong (as our colleague Alison put it, “It’s shocking how much better these are than the others”). On overall satisfaction, Lay’s were — to the official and unofficial testers — the stand-out favorite. When the taste test was over, we sat around in the garden and finished the whole bag.
Thank you so much for your expertise, Casey! So, friends, do you agree with these findings? And what snack, dessert, or ingredient shall we put to the test next?
P.S. Many more taste tests, and THE best summer dessert to bring over.
(Thank you to Alison for letting us use your garden!)
