Of all the weird chips I’ve eaten over the years, I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid getting pickle chips. I guess a lot of it can probably explained by the simple fact that I’m not a huge fan of actual pickles, so the thought of them in potato chip form sounds even worse. But my wife loves anything and everything pickle-related, and so she picked up a bag of these when they were a Special Buy at Aldi. Since they were in the house, I had to try them for myself.
Wow, I have to say that these are really pretty spot-on. It starts off with a sourness very reminiscent of salt and vinegar chips (and due in large part to the presence of vinegar as part of the pickle seasoning), but then a surprisingly accurate pickle flavor seeps in to the forefront. I know there are people that like to put chips on sandwiches—it would be an interesting experiment to substitute these for actual pickles in a sandwich or sub and see if it would give the same flavor (or at least something relatively similar), but with the benefit of additional crunchy texture.
The only problem with these, and it’s something that even my pickle-obsessed wife agrees with, is that they just aren’t addicting. They’re almost too accurate; they creeped me out more than they begged me to dig into them. The sour factor also plays a strong role in these, because there’s really nothing to counterbalance the flavor: It starts off with the sour vinegar flavor, and that merely gives way to a sour pickle flavor. It’s not really surprising that a guy like me (who doesn’t really enjoy sour chips) doesn’t find these too addicting, but again, for the sake of comparison, even my wife could only eat a couple of these. And she’s of the mindset that the more vinegar in a salt and vinegar chip, the better (I’ve tried a couple that she loved and actually winced because the taste was so strong).
This is a rare product that I just can’t really wrap my head around. It should receive points because it’s very close to the food that it’s trying to replicate (an area where most chips fail miserably), but at the same time, there’s almost no reason to eat them. They’re not addicting, and a jar of actual pickles are about the exact same price, meaning there’s really no reason to just grab a jar of those if you’re craving them.
A random, hypocritical side note: I would love to try a chip based on bread-and-butter pickles. That would be interesting, though it would probably be subject to the exact same complaints I had about this one.
Overall: 5.5/10. They’re pretty darn accurate, but that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily “good”: These aren’t the least-bit addicting, and actually get pretty old after just a few chips. Each bite starts with a strong vinegar flavor, with the pickle coming in shortly thereafter. Even my wife (whose decision it was to buy these, who is pickle-obsessed, and whose idea of a good salt and vinegar chip is one swimming in the latter liquid) could only eat a couple of these before putting them down, due to “taste fatigue”. I can appreciate the accuracy and value, but these aren’t something either of us would be likely to get again.
