Review: Lay’s Baked Potato Chips – Are They Really Any Different?

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It’s still pretty difficult to spot the Baked Lay’s chips at most suburban grocery stores and at the Mahim store that we picked up the chips from, the packets were *literally* collecting dust on the shelf! Maybe Lay’s Baked Potato Chips sell faster at grocery marts and popular retail chains, but in all likelihood, if it ain’t selling at your local baniya’s, it ain’t selling much at all.

Not a good sign from the get-go but still, in the interests of a review and expanding waistlines everywhere, we picked up all three flavours available to investigate whether these non-fried chips are worth buying at all.

Here’s what we found:

Cream, Herb and Onion: Apart from their angular shape, these chips taste disappointingly similar to their fried cousins, except for a far crispier bite. We admit, the fact that they taste the same might be the whole point, but for those who are actually hoping for a lighter, less saltier variant, this flavour fails on all counts. It is also the greasiest of all three versions despite the fact that these chips are baked.

Sunkissed Tomato: Umm, this one is more slobber than kiss. The flavour is laid on as strong as the fried version and although the salt quotient is considerably reduced, it only enhances the tomatoey ketchupy flavour with a decidedly sweet aftertaste which might not be to everyone’s liking. Certainly not ours.

Original – Definitely our favourite of the whole lot. Far less saltier than the original version, delightfully crispy and you can actually taste the wholesomeness of potato in the chips – quite yummy and a distinctly different taste experience from the original. The good part is that because these chips are not fried, they tend to settle in the stomach faster, thus giving you that full feeling sooner. Less chips, less they show on the hips! Now, the price factor. While the regular packet costs Rs15, the larger packet sounds Rs30. Compare them with the fried version (regular – Rs10 and large – Rs20), we’re talking quite a price hike here for what is basically the same product. Any dietician or health food website will tell you that you can’t make a daily meal out of potato chips just because they are baked and not expect to pile on the pounds. Moderation here, as with everything else worth indulging in life, is key.

And if that is the case, would we pay Rs5 or Rs10 extra for a healthier version of junk food that, mind you, is still basically junk food? Right off the bat, our answer would be no. The only exception we’d make is with the Original Baked Potato Chips since, as we mentioned above, it actually tastes different. By the way, in our video, we did a taste test of the Cream, Herb and Onion flavor with 10-year-old Soham. Apart from the unexpected blooper with the packaging (which deserves its own rant in a future blog post), Soham was pretty much indifferent to the baked version. We doubt most kids could tell the difference.

So if you want to wean your child away from fattening foods, maybe Lay’s Baked Chips could be worth the splurge after all. Soham did mention the attractive packaging and kept munching away at the chips even after we stopped shooting. So maybe Frito-Lay has hit upon something here. Now if only they could come up with completely different, healthy-tasting flavors and make the Baked Chips line stand on its own, instead of making it a ‘healthy’ variant of the existing flavors. Because about that, we’re not too convinced. We’d love to know if chips lovers out there have actually made a clean break from the fried version and shifted permanently to Lay’s Baked Potato Chips. Do they satisfy your craving like regular chips do? Tell us what you think in our comments section below!

Lay’s Baked Chips (Cream, Herb and Onion; Sun kissed Tomato and Original)

Weight: 67gm
Price: Rs30

Weight: 32gm
Price: Rs15