Plain potato chips
Most of our panel liked Herr’s Crisp ’N Tasty Potato Chips for their golden color and good potato flavor but found them to be blander and less light and crispy than some of our picks.
365 by Whole Foods Organic Sea Salt Potato Chips had an earthy potato flavor most tasters liked, but not as much as our picks. They looked earthy, too: large, flat, pale chips with a wisp of potato skin at the edges.
Sal de Ibiza Chips from Spain were one of the only imported chips our panel liked. These large, sunny chips had a great flavor and were very crispy, but most felt they were just a little too greasy.
Most tasters liked these smaller, thin and crunchy Market Pantry Classic Potato Chips made for Target but didn’t consider them a favorite, noting that they had a slightly darker flavor and color than many of our picks and a slightly more oily flavor.
Most tasters really liked Lay’s Classic Potato Chips, noting a big crunch and balanced salt-and-potato flavor, but several noted the taste felt subdued compared with that of our picks.
Walker’s Legendary Ready Salted Potato Chips, imported from the United Kingdom, garnered a very similar reaction. (Both brands are owned by PepsiCo.)
We liked the potato flavor of Wise Snacks Golden Original Potato Chips—darker-brown chips that are on the smaller side and salty—but they were a little oilier than most.
Herr’s Crisp ’N Tasty Potato Chips had a nice, toasted, oven-fried potato flavor, but the salt was unevenly applied.
Some tasters thought Trader Joe’s Ode to the Classic Potato Chip were pale and tasted slightly stale, though they had a nutty, balanced flavor and snappy texture.
Our panel found that Old Dutch Original Potato Chips had a dense, too-dry texture and some vegetal off-flavors, and they needed more salt.
Martin’s Sea Salted Potato Chips are made with shortening instead of vegetable oil, and our panel did not like their starchy, powdery texture. A few tasters also noticed bitter off-flavors.
Tasters did not like Whole Foods Organic potato chips, which had some green spots in addition to thicker pieces of potato peel, and stale, rancid flavors.
Both Gibble’s Original Potato Chips and Kay & Ray’s Premium Potato Chips, also made by Gibble’s, are fried in lard, and even tasters that like our old-fashioned picks found the aftertaste of the animal fat unpleasant.
Middleswarth Potato Chips are also made with lard. Several tasters liked these chips but said that the flavor, reminiscent of fast-food french fries, wasn’t suited to a plain potato chip.
We dismissed Better Made Special Original Potato Chips, which had an unpleasantly strong oil flavor that was almost porky, even though they are not made with lard.
Sterzing’s Potato Chips, a regional brand from Iowa, tasted like older, musty oil.
Snyder of Berlin Original Potato Chips were light and crisp, though some tasters found the oil a little rancid.
The batch of Spain’s Bonilla a La Vista chips we tried had rancid oil flavors, which surprised us—multiple tasters on the panel had tried these beautiful, sunny chips in the past and loved them. We recommend them in several gift guides for that reason and for the fun factor of receiving a big tin of chips as a gift. But because of the potential for stale chips, we couldn’t make them a pick in this guide.
Torres Extra Virgin Olive Oil potato chips had rancid, off-flavors. We also sampled Torres Selecta Mediterranean Sea Salt chips, which tasted bland and stale. But our tasters thought both looked beautiful.
Superbon Chips de Madrid from Spain and San Carlo Classic Potato Chips from Italy were also bland and stale, with starchy aftertastes.
We had wanted to try Clover Valley Classic Potato Chips, sold at Dollar General, and Snack Day Original Potato Chips, sold at Aldi, but both were out of stock during our tasting. And chips from Charles Chips arrived too late for us to include them in our test.
Kettle-style potato chips
We liked the toasty, deep-fried flavor and light texture of Clancy’s Original Kettle Chips, which had savory, almost meaty overtones, but we didn’t find them to be as appealing as our top picks.
Most tasters found Zapp’s New Orleans Kettle Style Regular Flavor chips to be nicely crunchy and balanced in flavor, if somewhat average.
Great Value Kettle Cooked Original Potato Chips were a nice golden brown and very crunchy, with a fried potato flavor similar to that of fast-food french fries. But some found that flavor lingered too long.
A few tasters liked the heavy crunch and savory, oily flavor of Tim’s Cascade Snacks Cascade Style Potato Chips with Sea Salt, but several thought these dark-tan chips had lingering flavors that were borderline unpleasant.
Utz Kettle Classics Original were a little on the oily side but fresh-tasting and light, with good potato flavor. But some thought they were too soft.
My Dad’s Chips Homestyle Potato Chips were polarizing. Some tasters absolutely loved this chip’s dark russet color, extra saltiness, deep crunch, oily sheen, and toasty, long-fried flavor, especially with dip. Others felt they were a little too salty.
The darkly fried, oily Good & Gather Kettle Cooked Sea Salt Potato Chips reminded tasters of latkes, but several thought they tasted overcooked, or even slightly bitter.
Miss Vickie’s Sea Salt Chips were also among the darkest chips we tasted. Though they had good flavor and texture, we found them to be too greasy, and some chips tasted stale.
We did not enjoy Kettle Brand Sea Salt Potato Chips, which tasted stale and even scorched, with a strong aftertaste and unpleasant mouthfeel.
We appreciated the mission of Uglies Sea Salt Kettle Potato Chips—to use potatoes rejected for use by other chip makers—but did not love the end results. Some chips had unpleasant earthy, stale, or moldy flavors and a strong aftertaste of green potato.
Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Original had a sweet-potato flavor and greasy crunch that many liked, but some tasted scorched oil.
Martin’s Kettle Cook’d Hand Cooked Potato Chips are fried in shortening instead of vegetable oil, and our panel did not like their bitter off-flavors and softer texture.
We mostly liked Dirty Kettle Style Potato Chips, which are golden brown and taste and feel a little oily. The flavor wasn’t hugely potatoey, but the chips were satisfying. Although, a few found they had a slightly unpleasant aftertaste.
Kettle-style Pipers Angelsley Sea Salt Crisps were oily yet bland, and undersalted.
Wise Snacks New York Deli Kettle Cooked Potato Chips were noticeably harder than other chips, which many tasters didn’t like, and on the oily side. The potato flavor was earthy and toasty, though some tasters detected a stale or even fishy aftertaste.
We did not like 365 by Whole Foods Market Sea Salt Kettle Chips, which were stale, lacking in flavor, and strangely hard.
We also did not like Siete Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, which are fried in avocado oil. Tasters noted they tasted like dirt, plastic, or scorched oil, were too soft, and had a bad aftertaste.
Trader Joe’s Kettle Cooked Olive Oil Potato Chips also tasted of scorched oil and had an unpleasant buttery aftertaste.
Great Lakes Potato Chip Co. Kettle Cooked Original Potato Chips had a good flavor and were super crunchy, but some found they had starchy notes that were unpleasant.
Hal’s New York Kettle Chips Original Sea Salt were pale and stale, and several chips also had flecks of green potato, which tend to taste bad.
North Fork Potato Chips were also small, pale, and stale.
We did not like Rusty’s Chips Sea Salt Potato Chips. Dark orange, and extremely oily, they tasted stale and were thick and dry.
We had wanted to taste Clover Valley Original Kettle Potato Chips, sold at Dollar General, but they were out of stock during our tasting.
Wavy and rippled chips
Tasters thought Ruffles Original had great flavor, a good crunch, and stood up to dipping, but they were not as well-liked as our picks. They’re also very salty.
Utz Ripples Original Potato Chips and Utz Wavy Original Potato Chips were well balanced, with a good salt level, sturdiness, and potato flavor, but some said they were subtler than our picks.
Herr’s Ripples Potato Chips (which have a wider wave) and Herr’s Ridged Potato Chips were also very good, but with a flatter flavor than our pick. Herr’s Kettle Cooked Classic Lattice Cut with Sea Salt potato chips, on the other hand, were too oily and thick.
Clancy’s Wavy Potato Chip, made for Aldi supermarkets, had a great texture but were starchy and tasted undercooked.
We did not like Kirkland Signature Kettle Brand Pink Salt Potato Chips, made for Costco. They were greasy, hard, and bland, and they tasted slightly underdone.
We did not like Boulder Canyon Classic Sea Salt Kettle Style Potato Chips, which are fried in avocado oil. The oil tasted stale and bitter.
We had wanted to taste Clover Valley Ripple Cut Potato Chips, sold at Dollar General, and Amazon Fresh Wavy Potato Chips, but both were out of stock during our tasting.
