The Hottest Flavor in Snacks Is ‘Cooked Too Long’ Nearly burnt chips, pretzels, and crackers are taking over the snack aisle

eater ^

[mylife]

Snack companies are always scrambling to figure out what the next hot flavor is, because The Market demands ever-changing options even though the perfection of sour cream and onion is right there. Chip and pretzel and puff makers experiment with making things pickle-y, or spicy, or putting spice on top of the other flavors, or making snacks taste like completely other meals, like pizza. But the latest trend isn’t a flavor at all. It’s a method, which in many ways leads to the absence of flavor, but which also is for many exactly the point. Get excited to buy burnt chips.

A few brands have made inroads into the overcooked market, to the thrill of anyone who explicitly scours a bag of potato chips to find the burnt bits at the bottom. Better Made may have started the trend with its “Rainbow” chips, which it first started mass-producing in 2005. The first potato chips, it says, used to look a lot more like Rainbow chips, but as potatoes with less sugar content became favored in chip production, the dark, caramelized color became rarer. “​​Better Made would collect the rejected dark chips and package them as ‘Rainbows’ but the supply was very limited and we were unable to meet the demand for them,” the company says in its product description. Eventually, it worked with farmers to develop a potato that would create a darker chip.

Herrs, Utz and Cape Cod have all introduced (or re-released) “dark” russet kettle chips Utz has also made “extra dark” pretzels, as has Unique. “We left our classic special sourdough pretzels to cook just a little bit longer for all our dark pretzel fans,”

Cheez-It introduced an “Extra Toasty” line of snacks “after years of fan requests.”

[Ken H]

>>I’ve deep fried them myself. Two things I did wrong-
1. Didn’t have a mandolin, had to cut them by hand. Took me forever.
2. Put too much salt on them.<<

---

1. Mandolins are expensive. Wouldn’t a guitar work just as well?
2. Not possible!

[mykroar]

I love me some Toasty Cheez-Its.

[Scarlett156]

“These are Cajun style TV dinners.”

[telescope115]

🙂

[mylife]

yessir.

[VTenigma]

Goes along with their burnt Starbucks coffee.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Pet peeve of mine, too.

[dragonblustar]

I’ve been making burnt food for years. Who knew I was a head of the curve.

[Myrddin]

I don't eat many chips. For a "hot" snack, I prefer the Diamond roasted almonds dusted with ghost pepper or carolina reaper pepper.

[Bob434]

ah ok- I do like overcooked chips-

[null and void]

I’ve been making burnt food for years. Who knew I was a head of the curve.

Stop breathing on the food while you're cooking!

[lado]

I thought these were Ronnie James Dio’s Rainbow in the Dark chips for a few seconds.

[DarrellZero]

I don’t like burnt food. My mom used to burn everything. Yuck.

[real saxophonist]

Yep, me too.

[TChad]

(Carcinogenic) acrylamide

These things are rarely as clear-cut as we might like...

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/acrylamide-fact-sheet

[Textide]

The Maillard Reaction is a real thing as far as flavor. Searing meats and veggies definitely has an impact on flavor. Potatoes seem to taste better with a little brown around the edges.

[JimRed]

Get your taters, thin slice them on a slicer board, put a bunch of oil in a fry pan, and make your own chips.

Getting the oil hot enough to really crisp them sets off my smoke alarms.

[catnipman]

reminds me of the joke about the wife who used the smoke alarm as her “done” timer ...

[crz]

I guess a person can bake them.

How they turn out I dunno. Never tried it.

But we rarely purchase chips anymore since we started deep frying them.

[cyclotic]

So what? There can’t be enough in a handful of chips to hurt you.