The Best Plain Potato Chips To Stock Your Snack Drawer With

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When the craving for something salty and crunchy kicks in, there are few things that satisfy the hankering like the classic potato chip. Fortunately, there is no shortage of options to choose from. Unfortunately, this can also lead to a dilemma. Sure, most people have their favorites already, but if the choice is up to us, we're going with Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips' Original with Sea Salt. And, trust us, we tasted a lot of chips when we sat down to create the ultimate ranking of plain potato chips.

What stood out to our taste testers was that every Cape Cod Kettle chip was consistent, meaning no singular chip was over-salted, over-fried, or just too greasy. They were shatteringly crisp (the way kettle-cooked chips should be), well seasoned, and tasted like pure potato, as opposed to stale oil or starchy potato flakes that characterizes some of its competitors. With Cape Cod Kettle chips around in your pantry or snack drawer, you'll always have a reliable bag of potato chips around to eat right out of the bag, scoop up your favorite onion dip, or pile on your bologna sandwich.

Sometimes there's nothing better than mindlessly munching on potato chips while catching up on Netflix, or enjoying them alongside a sandwich, preferably while sitting at the pool like when you were a kid. Cape Cod Kettle Potato Chips pass with flying colors in situations like these. But this brand is so impressively good, that you should consider them an ingredient in certain recipes and as part of an hors d'oeuvre spread.

Many recipes that call for a crunchy breadcrumb topping can be elevated by using quality potato chips as the crust. Tuna, chicken, and potato casseroles are natural contenders, but so are oven-baked macaroni and cheese, spinach artichoke dip, and cheesy potatoes. Cape Cod chips are just thick enough to stay crunchy in such recipes, and they won't tear up the roof of your mouth when you bite into them.

We know it's easy to pour a bag of potato chips into a bowl at a party and call it done, but think outside the bowl next time and try something like Basque nachos, sometimes called Spanish nachos. They start with a bag of good kettle chips and are layered with things like Manchego cheese, Spanish ham, green olives, capers, pickled peppers, and anchovies. They have the flavors of classic tapas or pintxos but come with the satisfying crunch of potato chips. Or top individual chips with a thin slice of smoked salmon, some fresh dill, and a dollop of crème fraiche. They're great paired with a cold beer or a glass of prosecco.