Review: Lay’s Flamin’ Hot potato chips

For me, the gold standard for hot potato chips is the old Golden Flake Hot variety. They were warm enough to be interesting, and surprisingly sweet (indeed, they had a ton of sugar in them). I associate them with Cub Scouts at the old Golden Springs Community Center, or maybe a snack stash for when Danette was coming to keep my sister Jenny and me for the evening.

Alas, Golden Flake Hot does not seem to have survived. I don’t know whether they perished when they became Utz or significantly before then. There is an Utz “Red Hot” variety, but I’m confident it’s not the old Golden Flake recipe.

So here’s some regular ol’ potato chips from the “Flamin’ Hot” line to try. My experience is that this line isn’t bad, but there hasn’t been anything particularly notable either, in flavor or heat. I tried these with a ham sandwich. How did it go?

Well, the ingredient panel is one of a sweet-hot chip: potatoes, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, salt, dextrose, malted barley flour, sugar, tomato powder, torula yeast, natural flavors, yeast extract, onion powder, citric acid, gum acacia, vegetable juice, garlic powder, spices, milk protein concentrate, and annatto extracts.

We also learn the chips are red because of vegetable juice, as opposed to smushed bugs or some other distasteful ways the megacorps bring you red on your food when God didn’t.

I had a few with a ham sandwich, and I’m pleased to report these are down the road of Golden Flake Hot potato chips a good piece. They are not quite as sweet—think of the difference between Oreo and Hydrox, or Pepsi and Coca-Cola—but they’re right in that quadrant.

I didn’t need a drink, but they are fairly hot for a mainstream snack product, so don’t catch yourself out in traffic without a drink or something.

While not an exceptional product, Lay’s Flamin’ Hot potato chips deliver well enough to be a good pickup for sandwich duty or the ball game.