The Absolute Best Salt & Vinegar Chips Aren't Lays Or Kettle Brand

We all have our favorite snacks, but the pleasures multiply exponentially when it comes to salty, crunchy potato chips. In that snack arena, brand characteristics really matter, giving rise to a lot of chatter over which ones are superior. We're here to tell you upfront that the best tangy chips featuring salt and vinegar don't hail from the brands you might imagine. In other words, these chips don't bear the Lay's or Kettle Brand logos.  

Tasting Table spent considerable time compiling a list of the 13 best salt & vinegar potato chips ranked from worst to best, taking into account things like taste, texture, flavor complexity, pucker-perfect acidity, potato thickness, and crucial levels of crispy crunch. The hands-down absolute best salt and vinegar chips hail from the state of Massachusetts and proudly feature the iconic Nauset Lighthouse in its logo. That lighthouse perches picturesquely on the Cape Cod National Seashore, thus the product name: Cape Cod potato chips. The Sea Salt & Vinegar flavor is one of about 20 varieties that the company produces.

Cape Cod chips are a product of kettle cooking, which relies on batch cooking with thicker slices and crunchier texture. The company explains that, because of the extra thickness, they can add more vinegar to accompany the robust potato taste. There's also a difference not largely touted but evident when perusing the ingredient list: The Cape Cod chips contain apple cider vinegar powder, which is known for retaining hints of complex fruity sweetness from the crushed apples.

Despite its march up the popularity scale since launching over 40 years ago in a Hyannis-based natural foods store, the Cape Cod chip brand sticks to its original small batches rather than mass production. The company, and its factory, still reside in that small yet famous shoreside village, home to the iconic Kennedy Family compound. These humble beginnings and a commitment to natural ingredients are what earned and retains its reputation. The brand's chips, including the Sea Salt & Vinegar version, contain no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives.  

By comparison, Lay's iteration of salt and vinegar potato chips contains less than 2% natural flavors. It lists simply "vinegar" and "salt" rather than the apple cider vinegar and sea salt of the Cape Cod chips. The Lay's version came in at number 11 out of 13 on the Tasting Table ranked list, citing the thin, fragile composition and lack of appealing textural features. The potato taste wasn't prominent or complex enough for taste-testers, and the vinegar seemed more passive than puckery.

Kettle Brand Sea Salt & Vinegar potato chips fared a bit better at number seven on the list out of 13, primarily due to the deep, toasty, double-crunchy quality of all Kettle Brand chips. When compared specifically with the Cape Cod salt and vinegar chips, the namesake salty and vinegary flavors failed to emerge as remarkable. The richness of apple cider vinegar in Cape Cod's version is notably absent in the ingredient list for Kettle Brand.