We Tried 10 Lay’s Chip Flavors From Walmart and Ranked Them

I gave Chile Limón an F. Tanner told me it was his favorite chip out of everything we’d tried.

“They’re my favorite ones that I’ve ever tried,” he said.

I asked him again, and he said yes. After 10 bags of Lay’s potato chips from Walmart, my son and I had somehow landed on Classic for me and Chile Limón for him. We did agree on a few things, including giving All Dressed an F each.

Here are all our ratings and what we liked about the bags we’d buy again. The video has the full tasting, including the part where we forgot to rate a flavor and Tanner’s mystery-chip round at the end.

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Watch We Tried Every Lay’s Chip Flavor From Walmart.

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Our Walmart haul and Lay’s flavor ratings

Tanner had been asking to do this video for a while. I figured we’d pick up about six bags. We came home with 10.

These were all the Lay’s flavors we found on that particular Walmart trip. That’s the “every flavor” in the video title, rather than every flavor Lay’s makes or a promise about what your store has today.

We tasted one flavor at a time and each gave our own S, A, B, C, D, or F rating, with S at the top. Tanner tried to add an SS tier, but I kept us on our usual scale. The table follows the tasting order. These are tiers, not a strict first-to-tenth ranking. Tanner’s Chile Limón verdict is listed as his favorite rather than a letter grade.

Tanner’s favorite got an F from me

The last two bags were Limón and Chile Limón. We called them “lemon” and “chili lemon” quite a bit in the video, but they’re lime and chili-lime flavors.

With the plain Limón chips, the lime was faint at first and the sourness came through toward the end of the bite. I didn’t like that flavor on a potato chip. Tanner did. My F and his B already had us disagreeing before we opened the Chile Limón bag.

Then came the heat. I thought Chile Limón was definitely a little spicy, and we spent a while on that tasting before getting to the verdicts. Tanner loved it enough to call it his favorite of all the bags we’d tried. He then told me the plain Limón was his second favorite.

I was genuinely shocked. Those were both F-tier chips for me.

Tanner asked whether I was giving Chile Limón an F because of the spice. I wasn’t. I like spicy food. It was the lime taste again. I loved Salt & Vinegar and Dill Pickle in this same tasting, but lime on these chips just didn’t work for me.

If you only read my scores, you’d skip the flavor Tanner liked most. That’s why I’ve kept his verdicts beside mine. You can hear us trying to make sense of that disagreement in the Chile Limón verdict exchange at 19:45.

Classic kept us coming back for another bite

We started with Classic and took a few extra bites before getting the ratings out. There was a lot of “I got to try another bite” for a chip we’d both eaten before.

I gave it my only S. I like the plain Lay’s chip, and I prefer the smooth version over ridged chips. Tanner gave it a B. He knew it was the classic, but that didn’t make it his favorite.

At the end, I was surprised that the plain bag had stayed my winner. I usually buy different flavors, especially Dill Pickle. I hadn’t expected to try all these bags and still choose Classic.

We moved on before rating Cheddar & Sour Cream

Cheddar & Sour Cream has been one of my favorites for a long time. I came into this bag thinking I preferred the Ruffles version these days, but these tasted better to me than the Lay’s chips I remembered from my last few purchases.

We tried them, started on Bacon Grilled Cheese, and then I had to stop.

“Did I even rate the cheddar and sour cream one?”

We hadn’t. We went back and tasted it again before giving Cheddar & Sour Cream an A from me and a C from Tanner.

Bacon Grilled Cheese reversed which one of us liked the bag more. Tanner put it at B; I went with C. I thought it was all right and better than Honey BBQ, but I’d choose Cheddar & Sour Cream over it. Tanner’s grades went the other way.

So if you’re picking between those two cheesy flavors, my choice is Cheddar & Sour Cream. Tanner rated Bacon Grilled Cheese higher.

Salt & Vinegar and Dill Pickle got an A from both of us

Salt & Vinegar was one of the easier bags to agree on. I love it, Tanner liked it enough for an A, and I matched him. It still finished a tier below Classic for me.

I went into Dill Pickle expecting to like it and grabbed two chips to start. That tasting turned into me talking about how much I love dill pickle, including the very broad suggestion, “Just put dill pickle on it.”

After all that, I still gave the chips an A rather than an S. Tanner gave them an A, too, and included Dill Pickle among his favorites at the end.

Those are the two bags I’d point to if you want a flavor that did well with both of us.

Sour Cream & Onion was another agreement, at B each. I like it, but some bites have a slightly cardboard-like taste to me. I couldn’t tell you exactly what causes that. Tanner called the chips basic during the tasting, then still included them in his group of favorites.

His final list is worth keeping alongside the letter grades. Limón got a B and was his second favorite. Sour Cream & Onion also got a B and made his favorites. That tells you more about what he’d reach for than the grade alone.

Honey BBQ and All Dressed stayed near the bottom

Neither of us put Honey BBQ near the top. I’m not a big barbecue-chip person, and I went with D. Tanner likes barbecue more than I do, but he wasn’t into the honey part. He thought it made the flavor too tangy and said he’d rather have regular barbecue. His rating was C.

We didn’t taste regular BBQ in this video, so there’s no score for that bag here.

All Dressed was new to me. We read the bag’s description of barbecue sweetness, sour cream and onion savoriness, and salt and vinegar tang. I liked the smell. Then we tasted it, and both of us went with F.

I wouldn’t buy that bag again for myself. I just didn’t care for the flavor, and Tanner didn’t either. If All Dressed is your favorite, this is where you’re going to disagree with our list.

Tanner added a mystery-chip round

After we’d picked our favorites, Tanner wanted to close his eyes, have me hand him chips, and guess which flavor he was eating.

He’d just picked Chile Limón first and Limón second. Now he was trying to recognize the flavors without looking, and he identified both correctly. Tanner’s mystery-chip round starts at 21:37, after the main ratings.

We also tried a mixed-chip experiment. I liked the mix, even after giving some of the individual flavors an F. Those bonus rounds stayed separate from our ratings for each bag.

Which Lay’s flavor would we buy again

Classic is my pick. Salt & Vinegar, Cheddar & Sour Cream, and Dill Pickle were my A-tier choices.

Tanner’s favorite was Chile Limón, followed by Limón. If lime and some heat sound good to you, his winner is the bag to consider. If you want the two flavors we both rated A, go with Salt & Vinegar or Dill Pickle.

For more snack taste tests, check out our Poland Universal Yums review and Hong Kong Snackcrate review.

Which Lay’s flavor gets your S tier? Leave your ranking in the comments on the video. I’m especially curious who’s siding with Tanner on Chile Limón.