Meh; Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion Potato Chips Are Average At Best

The Good: Good taste, Not entirely unhealthy
The Bad: Not as strongly flavored as I would like
The Basics: Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion potato chips are good, but not the ultimate expression of the flavor.


When it comes to the many salty snacks I have reviewed, it surprises me that the closest to potato chips I have reviewed (before now!) are the UTZ Potato Sticks (reviewed here!). So, following the little Golden Globes party my wife and I had, when I discovered I had not even broken into the bag of Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion potato chips, I figured it was time to rectify that oversight.

Basics

Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s, are a potato chip made from one of the world’s dominant salty snack producers, Frito-Lay. The Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s features a dusting of sour cream-flavored powder on each and every (otherwise white) potato chip. This is a pretty standard potato chip flavor and a very average execution of it.

Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s come in various sizes, but always in a bag. The size bag that I found was 10 oz. At a regular price in the $4.29 range, that seemed a bit overpriced to me, but fortunately, they go on sale frequently.

Ease Of Preparation

Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion are simple to enjoy; all you need do it open the bag and remove the potato chips from it! There is no trick to eating Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s; they are a snack that is ready to go from the bag to the mouth.

Taste

Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s smell surprisingly muted for the flavor. In fact, opening the bag, the only real aroma is fresh, salty potatoes. The potato scent is surprisingly aromatic, but there is no real scent of sour cream or onion when opening the bag.

The Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s potato chips are universally salty. Not one chip or chip fragment in the bag was unsalted. However, the tangy flavor of sour cream and the slightly bitter taste of onions is present on only about one in three chips. What flavoring there is is distinct, but it is inconsistent. Some chips have a creamy and flavorful coating, others are simply generically salty. Leaving the chips on the tongue for anything over about ten seconds allows the flavor of the actual potatoes of the chips to come to the foreground of the flavor palate.

The Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion potato chips have a salty and greasy aftertaste, but it dissipates within two minutes of consuming the last chip.

Nutrition

Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s are a fairly natural snack, with, surprisingly, none of the ingredients being unrecognizable! The primary ingredients are potatoes, vegetable oil, and sour cream and onion seasoning. This has a shelf life of only a few months, so it is not the ideal salty snack to stock up on.

Each 1 oz., 17 chip, serving of Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion has 160 calories, ninety of which come from fat. There is a single gram of dietary fiber. While there are only 10 grams of fat and 2 grams of protein, there is a significant 160 mg of sodium, which represents 7% of one's RDA of sodium. There is a smattering of Calcium and Iron, but few other vitamins or minerals. This is not a health snack. There is a dietary note that the Sour Cream & Onion includes milk ingredients, which prevents them from being Vegan compliant, at the very least.
Storage/Clean-up

Kept in their bag, Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s will remain fresh for a couple of months, but once the bag is opened, it must be resealed, lest they get stale. I've never had to deal with issues of freshness for my Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s.

Cleanup is simple as well. Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s are a dry food, but because they are salty, greasy, and easily broken, they will require one to wash their hands afterward and should be wiped up to clean up.

Overall

Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s are a fair, but not exceptional, salty snack.

For other snack foods, check out my reviews of:
Special K Southwest Ranch Cracker Chips
Tostitos Hint Of Lime chips
Planters Flavor Grove Cocoa And Cinnamon Almonds

5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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