I Tried 12 Popular Potato Chip Brands—This Is the One I’m Buying From Now On

I’m not sure what the original snack food was, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s potato chips. Thin, crispy, salty to the max, and good on their own or as a vehicle for dips, there’s really no limit to their enjoyment. Pour them into a giant bowl for party sharing, toss them next to (or even in) a sandwich for lunch, or wedge a bag into the center console of your car to keep commute crankiness at bay.

Now, you might be thinking (as I admittedly did when starting this assignment), how different can potato chip brands really be? Don’t they all use pretty much the same ingredients? They sure do. Though there are some discrepancies in types of oils and in kettle-cooked vs. fried or flat vs. ridges, it’s not like we can dive deep into flavor notes here. How the chip tastes is still paramount, but this ranking will lean much more heavily on things like texture, crunch, and what the eating experience is like, re: snackability.

For this test, I sampled chips as plain as they could get. No added flavors, no ridges, no nothing, except the potatoes themselves and however heavy a dash of salt the brand deemed appropriate. Let’s dig in.

The Best Tasting Store-Bought Potato Chips, Ranked

12th Place: Good & Gather Kettle Cooked, Sea Salt

Target’s in-house brand is dry as the desert, more bitter than it should be, and thinks salt isn’t good for your health. The kettle-cooked nature, though usually a positive for me, manages to detract from the chip here. It’s overly crunchy in a way that reads more like bread that was once fresh but is now hard as rocks rather than something desirable. If you’re in a bind, it’s not like anyone would spit these out or likely even notice anything off (they're not tasting them against 11 others). The thing that sticks them in last for me is that, when eaten after any other chip in the taste test, they come off fishy—as if basted lightly in sardine oil. And that’s just...hard to forget.

11th Place: Great Value Crunchy Potato Chips, Salted Original

Walmart’s Great Value label tries really, really hard to copy Lay’s. It even packages its chips in a bright yellow bag, for Pete’s sake. But Lay’s they are not. Inside the bag lies some sad, dusty-tasting chips, longing wistfully for salt. They’re also too sturdy for their own good, conjuring images of tortilla chips if they were made from potatoes instead of corn.

10th Place: Utz Original

Like Great Value’s, Utz’s chips need salt—badly. And though the large slices of potatoes clearly cut from big, beautiful spuds are a lovely sight to see, putting one in your mouth is much less pleasant. The chips have a chalky texture and turn into dust while chewing. It’s a surprising showing from a brand I have come to love in a variety of flavors.

9th Place: Kroger Crispy and Crunchy Classic, Original

Nothing about this chip is bad. But they’re just kind of...there. Kroger’s potato chips are unevenly salted and a bit flimsy. They yield instantly to chewing and slink away into a wilty, stale oblivion that eliminates any chance of snacking satisfaction.

8th Place: Munchos Potato Crisps

Munchos are so different that even the company won’t call them chips. They’re a “light-tasting crispy snack.” But since they’re made by FritoLay, the same company that makes Lay’s, they don’t need to be, nor should they be, the same.

These are airy and eat more like a veggie chip. I’m referring to the tri-color jobbies that have potato, spinach, and tomato as the key players. I even considered that these were just the potato ones removed and given their own bag. Thin and nearly impossibly crispy, poppability comes at you fast. Made from dried potatoes instead of sliced and with the addition of enriched cornmeal and potato starch, Munchos taste air-popped rather than fried. Your stomach may not thank you for eating an abundance of these (and that risk is great), but they could make for a nice departure from the old standbys on your snack buffet.

7th Place: Siete Kettle Cooked, Sea Salt

The Siete bag proudly declares, “Made with avocado oil.” And, besides the unmistakable scent of a musty air upon opening the bag, this little adjustment to chip-making is nice. There’s a nice little bitterness that often accompanies kettle-cooked chips, and the more you eat, the more you realize that crushing a whole 5.5-ounce bag in one sitting wouldn’t be hard to do. Other than a little issue with the chips being unevenly salted in the bag (some arrive to the tongue with no salt at all and others with enough to worry about your hydration levels), and a simple preference for some others, these are pretty great. I wasn’t aware Siete made a chip other than tortilla, and now I’m glad I do.

6th Place: Clancy’s Original

If there were an award for biggest sleeper hit, this bag would get it. I was not expecting much, and though far from mind-blowing, Aldi’s brand puts up quite a good showing. There’s a sour note here that would keep me from seeking this choice out over some other brands (five, apparently), but for the price, this snack is pretty great.

5th Place: Trader Joe’s Ode to the Classic Potato Chip

Joe is another guy who keeps the salt to a minimum. But these are solid chips. The oil they’re fried in has a bit of a vegetal quality to it, and there’s nothing incredible or even noteworthy otherwise, except that the flavor improves as you chew.

4th Place: Kettle Brand, Sea Salt

As the name implies, this is a very traditional kettle chip. There tends to be a bit of an astringency accompanying this company’s chips, but that isn’t a negative, even though it might sound like one. Thicker, pleasant in flavor, and with a nice salt content without being overpowering, you can’t go wrong with Kettle Brand.

3rd Place: Miss Vickie’s Kettle Cooked, Sea Salt

Miss Vickie’s is often the move when snagging a side to go with a sub sandwich from a deli, and there’s a reason. Though I can’t say I’ve ever had the original when yummy options like Jalapeño or Smokehouse BBQ are around, it does have wonderful raw potato flavor. The sea salt promised is a bit on the mild side for my taste, but that doesn’t detract from it being a really, really good chip. The top two reasons for the high ranking are: 1. They manage to eat light, even for a kettle-cooked option, and 2. They taste so fresh. Like they were fried in air instead of oil and they still got crispy.

2nd Place: Cape Cod Kettle Cooked, Original Sea Salt

Of the kettle-cooked options, Cape Cod is likely the thinnest. It's the perfect chip to please kettle-cooked devotees and traditional fans alike. The bag says “sliced thick,” which is a bit of a fib. But you know what claim isn’t? “Hearty potato flavor.” That, they have in excess.

And speaking of perfect, that’s the way to describe the crunch and the salt. The flavor manages to be unique and savory. These chips are absolutely delicious. I could even say they’re a tie with Lay’s and be happy with that.

1st Place Winner: Lay’s Classic

Winner winner, everyone gets potato chips for dinner. There’s a reason why Lay’s are so popular and readily associated with major snacking events (like the Super Bowl). The oil is far from stale, the chip is incredibly thin and melts away pleasantly as you eat it (instead of disintegrating in a cowardly manner), and they’re wonderfully and evenly salty in a way that sticks around for the entire bite. It doesn’t get much better than Lay’s. They’re the quintessential chip. Whoever wrote the slogan "Betcha can't eat just one" deserves a raise. It really is impossible to stop at one.