When you’re shopping in the potato chip aisle, chances are you may not be thinking too much about the differences between different styles of chips. While browsing the various popular baked snacks and fried potato chips, if you look a bit closer, you’ll see that Pringles are not actually labeled as potato chips. Instead, the brand refers to its product as “potato crisps.” But why is that? Well, it all comes down to the ingredients, specifically the inclusion of both corn flour and rice flour.
Potato chips are typically made by washing, peeling, cutting, and frying up thin slices of potatoes, but potato crisps undergo a different process entirely. Additionally, potato crisps are sometimes referred to as “compound potato chips.” This simply means that they are more processed than regular potato chips. So, rather than slicing the potatoes as you would for chips, these potatoes are dried and ground into a powder or flakes. This dried form of potato can then be combined with the additional starches, flours, and seasonings before the chips are shaped and fried.
The extra ingredients affect the flavor, too
As you might guess, adding additional flour to the potato crisps alters the flavor a bit from that of regular potato chips. Sliced and fried potato chips tend to have more potato flavor, which gives them more depth and an earthiness. The corn and rice flour, combined with dried potato flakes or flour, dilutes the potatoes’ flavor. Instead, you get a potato crisp that is milder and allows the other seasonings to shine.
Though the Food and Drug Administration allows Pringles to call its product “potato chips,” there is a stipulation. The packaging must also state that the chips are made with dried potato, which implies the extra processing. Interestingly, to avoid paying taxes levied on potato chips (or crisps, as the snack is called there), Pringles claimed that its product shouldn’t be considered potato chips in England. In the case, it was even said that Pringles are made from less than 50% potato matter (via The Guardian).
So, whatever you call the crunchy, salty snack, just know that Pringles are still made out of potatoes, along with a few other kinds of starchy flour. If you’re not sure which flavor to try, Tasting Table ranked the 18 best Pringles flavors out there. And don’t forget to save your empty Pringles cans for storing other snacks.
