These Potato Chips Are So Good, I Could Eat Them Every Single Day

If you’re lucky, you come back from a far-flung vacation with more than an unsightly sandal tan on your feet. In the case of the past three Octobers I’ve spent in Italy, I’ve returned to the States with both a Birkenstock-shaped tan and a new daily ritual: aperitivo hour. 

Also known as apéro (in France or Switzerland) or el aperitivo (in Spain), aperitivo loosely translates to an “opening up” of the senses — in this case, stimulating the stomach before dinner with snacks and a cocktail, wine, liqueur, or beer of your choosing. In Italy, you’ll likely prepare yourself for the main event in my personal favorite way: with salty, crispy potato chips.

Especially because I work from home (and talk to my dog a little too much), marking the early evening with a brief pause alongside a beverage and a top-tier bag of potato chips is a way I add whimsy to my life while also making sure I don’t turn into a Hangry Confused Mess before dinnertime inevitably creeps up on me. Not all potato chips will do, so I make sure to grab a few of the following bags to perform my near-daily, ultra-casual, budget-friendly, Campari-and-potato-forward ritual properly.

There are so few guarantees in this life, sure. But one is that you can always count on Kettle Brand chips to be extraordinarily crunchy and flavored with only the best seasonings (see: me spending the last six years trying to find the long-discontinued Korean BBQ chips). 

That being said, I feel safe saying that Kettle’s most tried-and-true bag is its jalapeño-flavored kettle cooked chips. As at home layered in a turkey sandwich as they are eaten between sips of a cold beer, these spicy chips are not shy and hold their own no matter what you pair with them. They’re thick-cut, infinitely crispy, and have a nice slow burn that makes them feel like a meal in itself. 

In the case of my aperitivo cocktail of choice (a bittersweet Negroni), I like to go with something classic to match (a simple salted potato chip). That doesn’t mean any ol’ basic potato chip. For me, Siete’s Sea Salt Potato Chips are like a grown-up version of the chips you always hoped would make it into your school lunch container. 

The potato isn’t hidden behind a cloak of seasoning — just a speckle of sea salt to really highlight its earthiness. Made even richer-tasting by being fried in avocado oil, Siete’s Sea Salt Potato Chips manage to hold their weight in Crunch Factor (this is a technical term I just made up), while also being light and airy and way too easy to repeatedly pop in my mouth.

Buy: Siete Sea Salt Potato Chips, $4.14 for 5 ounces at Walmart

If the 8-year-old version of me was given a superpower, I probably would have chosen the power to turn Cuban sandwiches into potato chip form. It only took 26 years, but it seems that someone at Trader Joe’s had a similar wish and dropped these Deli Sandwich Style chips in stores this past August so I could pick a different superpower (how nice!). 

The magic doesn’t stop there, as every chip in this bag features the spot-on flavor of each component of a Cuban sandwich (down to the ham, cheese, pickle, and mustard). I’d say it’s also the same flavor experience as most aperitivo snacks. So go ahead and do what’s natural and pair these crunchy, magical chips with your favorite drink.

Find it in stores: Trader Joe’s Deli Sandwich Style Potato Chips, $2.99 for 7 ounces at Trader Joe’s

Sometimes you just have to crunch, and even the most expertly-fried potato chips could stand to be even crunchier. So if you are not afraid to go further into the Crunchiverse for aperitivo hour, consider grabbing Hawaiian Brand’s kettle style potato chips — especially the Sweet Maui Onion flavor. 

Hawaiian Brand’s crunch factor would wake a sleeping bear up from hibernation. Coupled with its sweet-spicy Maui Onion seasoning (that has the subtle bite of a raw onion, I swear), these crispity-crunchity chips are well-worth making noise about.

Buy: Hawaiian Brand Sweet Maui Onion Kettle Style Potato Chips, $3.49 for 7.5 ounces at Target

Zapp’s Chips have long been a non-negotiable side when grabbing a beach-day “Pub Sub.” So it’s no surprise that the Voodoo potato chips make a Campari Spritz feel like a vacation as well. Especially if you’re planning a larger aperitivo, featuring friends with their own wildly varying tastes, Zapp’s Voodoo chips are nearly one-size-fits-all. 

By that I mean there is something for everyone in this mysterious-looking bag. Open it up and you’ll find that each handful yields a mystical arrangement of sweet, spicy, tangy chips — much like if you were to mix sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, and barbecue chips all together. Yet the combination makes for a snack that’s way more than the sum of its parts.