Home Entertaining Ideas - Celebrate Snacks on National Chip and Dip Day

(ARA) – Get your chips, get set, and dip! March 23 marks National Chip and Dip day in America. To honor and celebrate America’s number one snack food combination, American Culinary ChefsBest, the independent judging organization that determines America’s best products, recently taste-tested the most popular chip and dip categories just in time for the celebration.

The potato chip was invented in 1853 and has been America's number one snack food for more than 50 years. According to industry sources, in two hours, a manufacturer can make 7,000 pounds of potato chips, and it takes one pound of potatoes to make about 150 average size chips!
Americans consume over 1.85 billion pounds of potato chips a year, and while today there numerous potato brands and varieties lining the supermarket shelves; it is still the "plain" potato chip that remains the sales leader capturing over 80 percent of sales.

With so much riding on America’s favorite snack food combo, the chefs and taste experts at the American Culinary ChefsBest, evaluated the following chips and dip categories to help consumers find the best tasting for consumers:

Classic Potato Chips

The most popular chips with consumers, a high quality chip is an appropriate size to eat in one bite, with mostly whole chips in the bag. The color should be a golden brown with few imperfections such as dark spots. It has a moderate potato flavor, a fresh oil flavor, and relativity salty buy not burning. The texture is then and crispy texture with no off flavors.

ChefsBest Winner: Lay’s. The judges liked this brands fresh potato flavor. It had a really thin and crispy texture with a very balanced flavor overall. How the rest of the competition faired with the judges -- Better: Utz, Herr’s, Good: Old Dutch.

Tortilla Chips

A high quality tortilla chip would have a fresh roasted corn flavor, with faint oily notes. It has an appropriate corn flavor notes with a nice sweet to salty taste balance.

ChefsBest Winner: Santitas. The judging panels liked this chip for its crunch texture that “shattered” well, and it had no off flavors. How the rest of the competition faired with the judges -- Better: Doritos; Good: Mission, El Sabrosa; Judged but not ranked: R.W. Garcia, Tostitos, On the Border.

Refrigerated Guacamole

Guacamole started life in Mexico as ahuacamolli, an ancient Aztec word. The Spaniards added European flavors of onion, cilantro and lime, transforming the food and its name into today's favorite party dip. A high quality guacamole has a ripe avocado flavor, soft chunky pieces and a creamy texture that is not stringy.

ChefsBest Winner: AvoClassic. The judges found this brand to have appropriate taste balance and color with no off flavors. How the rest of the competition faired with the judges -- Better: Avo-King Southwester; Judged but not ranked: Calvo, Kraft, Marie’s, Lighthouse, Dean.

To learn more about the American Culinary ChefsBest, our professional taste-certified chefs, and of our unbiased and scientific judging process, please visit www.chefsbest.org.

Courtesy of ARA Content