Okay, I admit it. I’m addicted. To unique potato chip flavors. But it’s not what you think. It’s not that I can’t stop eating them. It’s that I’m addicted to finding new flavors. As any good travel blogger would say, my potato chip addiction is directly related to my travel obsession.
Wherever I travel, I’m inexplicably drawn to the potato chip (er… crisps) aisle of any grocery or convenience store we enter, on the rather likely chance I might discover a new potato chip flavor. The potato chip industry is doing nothing to quell my affliction, in fact they are deliberately making it worse by continually promoting new flavors. I was once quite obsessed with the Lay’s “Do Us a Flavor” contests.
I think I submitted more than a dozen possible flavors. None of them ever won. But that didn’t stop me from scouring grocery shelves for the flavors that did win. Whenever we arrive in Canada, my first order of business is to look for dill pickle chips. It’s my favorite flavor and while it’s available in the U.S., it’s not the same recipe as in Canada. Turns out Canada really loves their dill pickle chips!
As I mentioned before, it’s mostly Lay’s that perpetuates the unique chip flavor issue in the United States. But there are many companies that also create fun flavors around the world. When we moved to London, we found lots of new flavors of crisps, like bacon, cheese and onion, and prawn cocktail.
You’d be amazed at how many flavors are being sold all around the world. Everything from Chili & Chocolate flavor to “Numb” flavor, whatever that is. I assume that your mouth goes numb when you eat it. I don’t know though, because I didn’t find any of those in China when I was there.
The only flaw in this unusual hobby of mine is that oftentimes these uniquely flavored chips don’t taste very good. I give Lay’s and other brands top marks for trying, but many of the new lays flavors aren’t great. What do you think? What are your favorite flavors?
Canadian Flavors
Canada is a trove of weird potato chip flavors. Some of these pictured below are from the Lays Do Us A Flavor competition, like Scalloped Potatoes, Montreal Smoked Meat, Cowboy BBQ Beans, and Butter Chicken.
Poutine was a previous winner that was actually quite good. Lays Ketchup chips and Smokey Bacon are perennial favorites in Canada. And why not? There’s even a Maple Moose flavor. All Dressed is a flavor.
Click on any photo to enlarge and view a slideshow of the images.
United States Flavors
There are a some pretty unique potato chip flavors in the U.S., too. My favorite from the competition in the past few years was the Wasabi Ginger Kettle Chips. We recently used them to make a delicious tuna sashimi dish for our Supper Club when the chosen ingredients included potato chips.
So versatile, those chips! Some flavors we’ve loved over the years are Reuben, Truffle Fries, Bisquits & Gravy, and Gyro. There’s Chesapeake Bay Crab flavor, Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle, and Chile Limon,
United Kingdom Flavors
If the U.S. and Canada have so many unique potato chip flavors, surely the UK also has some interesting flavors! Since moving to London, I’ve done a pretty thorough recon on the crisps situation. The main chip company is Walkers. Here are some of the flavors we found in England.
Of course, there’s a Scottish Haggis flavor. What would the chip market be without it? Other fun flavors in the UK are Nando’s Peri Peri Chicken (a bit of a national obsession), Paprika, Roast Lamb & Mint, Aberdeen Angus, and Brown Sauce.
Potato Chip Flavors From Around the World
You may think that these three countries rule the unique-flavor potato chip market, but you’d be surprised what flavors you’ll find in other parts of the world. How about some Nori Seaweed-flavored chips, or some squid-flavored chips?
I can’t say I’ve ever craved crab-flavored chips, but maybe I would like the blueberry chips from China. Or how about those hamburger-flavor chips from France!
CONCLUSION
As you can see, with this obsession following me around to all the travel locations we go to, we have our hands full on our vacation (literally, full of potato chip bags). Beware: the addiction is catchy and you might find yourself coming down with it at any moment.
In fact, I bet after reading this post you’ll at least glance at the potato chip aisle where ever you happened to be around the world, curious to see what strange and unique potato chip flavors you can find. If you have a good one that I didn’t mention here, tell us about it!
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Laura Lynch, creator and writer of Savored Journeys, is an avid world traveler, certified wine expert, and international food specialist. She has written about travel and food for over 20 years and has visited over 75 countries. Her work has been published in numerous guidebooks, websites, and magazines.
I am also a potato chip tragic and follow your lead in hunting down new flavours as a priority when I hit a new city or country. My most outlandish so far was Haggis an Black Pepper in Wales.
In Australia we find these type of flavours somewhat normal but would probably excite a foreign chip enthusiast. Chips and Gravy (not as in biscuits and gravy) our gravy is more a rich dark meaty sauce we often have with roast meats. Meat Pie and tomato sauce, basically ketchup. Recently we have seen limited edition versions of Hotdog flavour and Loaded potato skins.
Dean, it’s so good to know there are others like me out there! Haggis and Black Pepper sounds pretty good, actually. I’m about to make an Australian Meat Pie food & wine pairing recipe for the blog. I’ll have to see if I can manufacture my own chip flavoring from it. 🙂
Chips, candy, and soda are three of my favorite things to check out at grocery stores around the world to see how they vary. Some of these are nuts! Blueberry?!?!
I know. Blueberry sounds very strange on chip. I don’t really like the taste of lychee either.
Oh I LOOOVE chips (and popcorn)! My favorite flavors so far is (French) cheese and roasted chicken. Didn’t know that there’s also blueberry, lychee, mango and cinnamon bun flavors!!! I definitely need to try those too!! 🙂
Seriously I never knew so many flavors existed! Wow! I am still going with my favorite of BBQ, although the BLT looked convincing.
BBQ is one of the best flavors ever invented. 🙂
In the office we have some really really weird flavors, Japan and Asia in general are incredible for strange flavors. I think there are even some salty sweet options like greentea wasabi or something like that!
Ooh, interesting – green tea wasabi would be a great flavor!
haha, this article is awesome! We too love finding all of the new flavours of chips when travelling. SE Asia has some good ones, so does China! Hot-Pot flavoured and Italian Meat – sounds weird, but tastes good! Thanks for sharing this, thought I was the only one..
I admit, I’d really like to try the Hot Pot flavor. I can’t even imagine what that would taste like.
Oh my god, yes! I’m with you on this one! As a Canadian, I can certify that dill pickle and ketchup chips are the bomb! I have been in Asia for some time now, and the seaweed ones in Thailand and magic masala in India are good substitute though 🙂
Amelie, I’m so glad you’re validating my dill pickle chips! They really are great. Magic Masala sounds really fun too.
A really fascinating addiction! I love tasting new flavours and although I don’t really eat potato chips at home, on holiday I always check out supermarket shelves for new flavours.
I agree, Monica. I don’t buy them for home, but I love trying them when we’re traveling!
You should come to Australia – we have the best flavors of chips ever! My favorite is chicken – it’s not butter chicken like the chips in Canada, just very salty crinkled chicken chips. LOVE them so much!! Funny though how the same flavour can taste different in different countries – I don’t know if you’ve noticed that too 🙂
As soon as I read your comments about dill pickle chips my mouth started watering. I’ve tried them in the U.S., but now I can’t wait to try them in Canada, too!
Fun post! I love the idea of potato chip encrusted tuna too. We love shopping in Mexico, just 20 miles from home. A friend makes Jello Shots for parties and finds very cool flavors that aren’t in the States. Will have to check out the chips too one day.
Now I want to head to Mexico to check out the jello flavors!
I have SO Much to say on this topic!!! Canada truly has a great selection of chip flavors. Ketchup and dill pickle are my favourite (And I actually hate real pickles!). SO SO tasty! The Ruffles brand also sells a flavor called sour cream and bacon, which doesn’t actually taste much like either of the title ingredients but is crazy delicious.
In Greece there is an oregano flavored Lay’s that is really, really tasty. It’s similar to pizza flavored chips and they’re the international flavor I miss the most.
It’s funny how the flavor sometimes doesn’t even end up tasting like the intended ingredients but they’re really good anyway. I’d like the sour cream and bacon ones!
OMG YES!!! The Chinese Lays Mexican Tomato Chicken flavor is to die for! SO disappointed by American “flavors” every time I come home! WHY are American flavors SO LIMITED?! In the US, chip flavors are almost exclusively limited to 5 “flavors”; salt, cheese, hot, vinegar, and the most useless excuses for sour cream and onion. LAME! If you’re lucky enough to find yourself in New England, check out the smaller brand names sour cream and onion flavors, like Mt. Wachussett or Utz brand; these have TRUE sour cream and onion flavors, not just salt with some fake, tasteless green flecks on them.
Ooh I haven’t tried that flavor yet. The UK is just as bad as the US. No fun flavors to be found here!
I do exactly the same when travelling, check out the chips (crisps in the UK), love the haggis and black pepper, bolognese (where I live in The Netherlands), Marmite and Smokey Bacon.
Great minds think alike. I’ve tried the haggis flavor. It’s actually quite good.
Recently in Canada we had a limited addition lay’s chip that was dill pickle & white cheddar (dill pickle chip and the flavor of Smartpop white cheddar popcorn). They were maybe my favorite flavor of all time!! And they are gone now 😢
That sounds so good!