The Best Thin Potato Chip Brand You Can Buy at the Store

Welcome to our ongoing series of Taste Tests That Will Surprise No One. We started withseltzer, and followed that withhamburger buns. Today we return to tell you what you already know about the best potato chips—in short, that they are made by Lay's.

But let's back up. Some may argue that kettle-style or thick-cut chips are superior. That's fair. But for this test, we limited ourselves to classic-style, thin-cut chips. And so, without much effort,Lay's Classictook home top honors.

However! Lay's were not necessarily the best chip ineverytest we performed. Once we started cooking with them—yes, chips are more than just a mindless snack—another, lesser-known chip outshone that ubiquitous brand. For our methodology and the full list of potato chips we tasted, scroll to the bottom of the page. First up, the rankings!

Our Favorite Potato Chip: Lay's

A few of our tasters gravitated toward chips they remembered from childhood—regional varieties they could detect just from having consumed far too many of them during backyard parties and sleepovers. Still, all but one person on the tasting panel scored Lay's higher than any other chip on the roster. Lay's chips are larger than most—and largely in-tact (many other bags were filled with broken bits).Some say Lay's are overly salted, but we disagree—not only do we find Lay's perfectly seasoned, we also find them cooked to an ideal level of doneness: neither too dark nor too light. In other words, we find Lay's to be perfect.

BUY IT:Lay's Classic Potato Chips, $4 for a (15.25 ounce) bag at Amazon

The Best Chips for More Than Snacking: Gibble's

Chips are not only meant for snacking. They make an ingenioustopping for flash-roasted fish, and a great backdrop for acustom appetizer. They're a crispybase for canapésand a funcookie mix-in. But for all of these scenarios, we put down the Lay's—and pick up Gibble's.

In our tasting, we found Gibble's chips wonderfully crisp and well seasoned. The only downside to this chip? It was pale. But that's exactly what makes it nice for cooking: when exposed to heat in an oven or skillet, Gibble's chips exhibit bright, toasty flavors. And unlike Lay's, they don't burn.

BUY IT:Gibble's Home-Style Potato Chips, $55 for 8 (14-ounce) bags at ShipMyChips.com

BYODip

Photo by Joseph De Leo

What We Were Looking For

We focused this taste test on thin, crispy potato chips. That meant nokettle-cooked, thick-cut, rippled, orMaui-stylechips. We also limited this tasting to plain, unflavored chips.

The best chips needed to shatter in our mouths and hit us with a good punch of salt. They couldn't be too dark—that kind of toastiness may work for thick-cut chips, but in a thin-cut, it just tastes burnt. Some bags were half-filled with broken chips, which was not a good look for the chips or for our theoretical parties, so we did consider the amount of whole, in-tact chips in each bag versus the broken bits. Other factors that brought the remaining contenders down: some were greasy and left a film on the roofs of our mouths; others were under seasoned; one had a musty aftertaste. Still, out of all the chips we tasted, there was only one that could be described as aggressively bad. The rest can come with us to a backyard barbecue anytime.

How We Tested

The first round of testing started with a panel of Epicurious editors and staff eating the chips plain and unadorned. Associate Social Media EditorAndrew Spenabrought in his own privateonion dip—he's extra in the best way—but otherwise, we tasted the chips just as the manufacturers intended.

For a second round of tasting, I took the top two chips to the kitchen and cooked with them to determine which, if either, would perform better in a capacity greater than snack time. I lightly crushed the chips in amortar and pestleand then used them to top a fillet of white fish (half with Lay's, half with Gibble's) that I'd spread with a scallion-mayo mixture. As you know if you've read this far, one brand of chips fared better than the other.

The Other Potato Chips We Tasted

In alphabetical order:

• 365 Everyday Value Organic Sea Salt Potato Chips
• Better Made Special Original Potato Chips
• 金Flake Original Thin & Crispy Potato Chips
• Herr's Crisp 'N Tasty Potato Chips
• Utz Original Potato Chips
• Wise Golden Original Potato Chips

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