The New Simply NKD Doritos & Cheetos Are Almost Perfect Dupes Of The Original Versions

PepsiCo, parent company to Frito-Lay, made waves recently when it announced an addition to its product lineup called Simply NKD. The Simply NKD line is a new formulation of Puffy Cheetos, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Cool Ranch Doritos, and Nacho Cheese Doritos minus one key aspect: artificial flavors and coloring. This is ostensibly due to a request by the Food and Drug Administration to the food manufacturing industry to remove synthetic food dyes (it asked for their removal, but didn't end up banning them outright).

It's likely we'll see many companies follow suit through the years, but reformulating original production recipes can take a lot time. Naturally dyed versions of candies like Skittles and Starburst, for example, are expected to hit the market sometime in 2026. While the general public won't see the Simply NKD line hit shelves until December 1, PepsiCo sent me the original version of those snacks as well as their Simply NKD versions for a taste test, and I wanted to see if I could tell the difference between the two. I theorized I would be easily able to, thinking I'm a fairly good taste tester, and I had this nagging suspicion that the artificial dyes lent a tiny bit of flavor to the end product. But in order to do this objectively, I went in blindfolded. Literally. I tied a bandana around my head and had my wife place the snacks in my mouth to see if I really would notice a difference between all of them.

I briefly considered getting long-winded about this, but I'm going to cut straight to the chase. Try as I might, I simply could not tell the flavor difference between the regular version of the classic Frito-Lay snacks and their dye-free Simply NKD counterparts, despite eating these snacks for much of my life. I only guessed one out of four correctly, my beloved Flamin' Hot Cheetos, and if you want to know the truth, it was because I had a 50/50 chance of getting it right. I was only picking one randomly over the other because I had no idea. Just because this was fun, I had my wife try the same exercise, and she only got two out of the four correctly. And for one of those, I'd accidentally let slip I'd given her a chip with one that had "more seasoning" on it, which she surmised to be the artificially dyed version (she was right).

It was a pretty remarkable outcome, considering I was so convinced I'd be able to tell the difference. If you're someone concerned about what synthetic food dyes might be doing to your body, trust that based off taste alone, these new snacks aren't an afterthought. They are genuine one-to-one dupes, and not the knock-off flea market version. And this extended to later as well, when I tried all of the snacks with my bandana off. They all tasted more or less the same, side by side, even with the visual effect now in full force. 

There's a tiny drawback to the new Simply NKD line, but it's sort of a funny one that I hadn't thought about during the blind portion of the taste test. That's because I'm one of those people who actively hunts down the chips with the most seasoning on them just so I get that extra hit of flavor (I'm that guy at parties, I know, I know). There is something childishly fun about looking forward to the chips with the most flavor, or timing out which ones to eat in a bag so you can stretch out the savory satisfaction. Without the coloring, it's hard to tell which chips have the most flavor dust.

It's only an issue with the Doritos, where it's most evident which chips are going to taste the most intense. Cheetos are generally uniformly seasoned so it's not much of an issue for those products. So yes, I hate to admit it, my poor little pea brain thinks that brightly colored food means that there's more flavor. But on the plus side, I guess that means nobody will see any bright red fingertips and know that I ate an entire bag of Flamin' Hots in one sitting.

I also noticed one other small thing too, later. Because the Simply NKD recipes now have no added monosodium glutamate (aka the flavor enhancer MSG), the savoriness in the aftertaste is minutely affected. But that's not to say there's no glutamates in the recipe, because some of the products contain yeast extract, which essentially adds the same flavor. Considering I hadn't noticed any difference in the initial blind taste test, it's so negligible this is a non-issue.

After seemingly endless snacking I'm happy to say that the whole Simply NKD thing isn't merely a gimmick, and actually does follow through on all the snacks' authentic flavor. There might also be people out there with super keen senses of taste that can identify the differences, in which case you may have a preference of one over the other. But the new line is meant to be an addition, not a replacement — so no need to panic, you'll still get to keep your brightly colored chips. And as you might suspect, the NKD Nacho Cheese Doritos are more expensive, retailing at $5.31 for a pre-order on Walmart (this is for a 9.25 oz. bag, currently on a sale price at $4.48), while the typical orange chips are $4.48.

If anything, maybe get some friends or family together and try the blindfolded taste test to see if you can tell the difference. Based on how well Frito-Lay cloned its own snacks, you might find that you don't know your snacks as well as you think you did. In this case, that's a good thing.