The Impulsive Buy

Tag: Frito-Lay

  • REVIEW: Cheetos Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle

    There are pickle-flavored things EVERYWHERE.

    In the same way that the early 2000s brought us bacon-flavored everything, it seems we’re in the middle of a pickle-flavored time period. Perhaps capitalizing on the TikTok trend of dipping a pickle into cream cheese and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Frito Lay has recently launched Cheetos Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle.

    Like its original Flamin’ Hot brethren, this snack is an enticing fire engine red color courtesy of Red 40 Lake and Yellow 6 Lake. I was half expecting to see little dill flakes here and there but my eyes didn’t pick up on any.

    Although the bag provided a hefty waft of undeniable pickle scent upon opening, I couldn’t tell from the ingredient list if vinegar or dill were actually added or if they were swept up under the “Natural Flavors” or “Spices” ingredient declarations.

    But WHOA, these do taste like pickles. The overwhelming flavor is brine-y vinegar with a lingering dill aftertaste. The heat from the Flamin’ Hot “cheetle” is absolutely in the mix as well. In fact, the vinegar flavor’s acidity and the heat compound on each other, which give these Flamin’ Hot Cheetos another sensory experience from the O.G. Flamin’ Hot. For many minutes after I was done eating, the tingling sensation of the spice hung on to my pallet, along with an intense dill and garlic flavor.

    If I could make any critique at all, it would be that the brine and acidic flavors overpower any cheese flavor or dairy notes from getting through at all. This is a hot, zingy snack. There’s almost no detectable cheese. I’m saying this as someone who prefers the undeniably cheesy Flamin’ Hot Queso Ruffles. But that’s a personal preference.

    Overall, I’d say Cheetos Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle really nailed a cultural moment on the nose. It successfully combined the expectations of Flamin’ Hot with the tang of a dill pickle brine.

    Purchased Price: 2 for $7 (on sale)
    Size: 8.5 oz bag
    Purchased at: Target
    Rating: 9 out of 10
    Nutrition Facts: (About 21 pieces) 150 Calories, 10 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, less than 1 gram of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.

  • REVIEW: Lay’s All Dressed Potato Chips

    Frito Lay should offer All Dressed potato chips all the time here in the US. No. Wait. That’s not correct. Let me rephrase that. To be more specific, Ruffles All Dressed Potato Chips should be available all the time here in the US.

    While these new Lay’s All Dressed Potato Chips are worthwhile, they have further convinced me that the Ruffles version should be the be-all and end-all carrier of Canada’s cherished chip seasoning when it comes to Frito Lay potato chip options. It’s exactly like how Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream is superior to Lay’s Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Chips. Ruffles have r-r-ridges that make them r-r-really r-r-recommendable over the r-r-regular-r-r and Kettle Cooked All-Dr-r-ressed chips. Sorry, I got carried away with the rolling Rs.

    About a decade ago, Ruffles All Dressed was a regular flavour and was around for a few years, if I remember correctly. But all of a sudden, it disappeared from shelves. And then all hell broke loose with those who loved those chips. No, the Kettle Cooked All Dressed Potato Chips from 2023 was not an adequate replacement, and neither is this new chip.

    The level of seasoning these chips have isn’t a kaboom, like what I remember the Ruffles version having. Instead, it’s more like a pew pew. The bag describes the All Dressed flavour as being a combination of all our favorite Lay’s flavours. There’s a savoriness like Sour Cream & Onion, a tanginess like Salt & Vinegar, and a sweetness like Barbecue. However, I remember the Ruffles version having a stronger tanginess and having a unique savory, tangy, and sweet flavour. This Lay’s lean too heavily towards barbecue, which, well, makes them taste too similar to Lay’s Barbecue Potato Chips.

    All in all, there’s no doubt I’ll be finishing the bag of these Lay’s All Dressed Potato Chips. They’re fine, but I’d be all for it if Ruffles All Dressed returned to the US.

    Purchased Price: $6.29
    Size: 7 3/4 oz bag
    Purchased at: Target
    Rating: 6 out of 10
    Nutrition Facts: (about 16 chips/28g) 150 calories, 9 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

  • REVIEW: Cheese Pizza Cheetos Puffs

    Cheese pizza-flavored Cheetos Puffs? Why not? I like Cheetos. I like pizza. Two great tastes that taste great together?

    Kind of.

    As soon as I opened the bag, I was walloped with the familiar scent of Cheetos, layered beneath a hint of tomato and a punch of basil.

    Basil, you ask? Yep, I was equally as confused. Unless I’m ordering a margherita pizza, I don’t typically expect basil to be among the predominant flavors in my pizza, especially not a cheese pizza, which by its very nature is assumed to be pretty basic, right? And yet, its presence was undeniable. Basil just feels a bit too “fancy” for lack of a better term.

    Appearance wise, these are puffy Cheetos, the same ones you’ve come to know and love… just a hint redder in their orange-ness. Never fear, though! They will leave your fingers equally cheese dusted.

    And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for… how did they taste?

    Exactly like they smell: Cheetos, with a hint of tomato and a heavy pinch of basil for some reason. The basil flavor really does steal the show, edging out the tomatoes and even the cheese to take center stage. Now, I don’t have anything against basil, but it really feels out of place here. Maybe if they’d been called Margherita Pizza Cheetos Puffs, or even just Pizza Cheetos Puffs, it wouldn’t seem so… wrong. I feel like calling them specifically “Cheese Pizza Cheetos Puffs” and featuring a slice of pizza on the bag with not a hint of green in sight misaligned my expectations.

    I was hoping for a fond callback to my beloved Keebler Pizzarias Cheese Pizza flavored chips (RIP), instead I got some cheese, some tomato sauce, and a whole lotta basil to drown them out.

    Purchased Price: $5.39
    Size: 8 oz bag
    Purchased at: Target
    Rating: 6 out of 10
    Nutrition Facts: 150 calories, 10 grams of total fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of total carbs, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 1 gram of total sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

  • REVIEW: Doritos Collisions Loaded Taco and Nacho Cheese

    Unlike the mosh pits at metal festivals with names like Brutal Assault, Hellfest, Sonicblast, Bloodstock, Deathfest, Aftershock, Full Terror Assault, Hellprint, Dark Troll, Metalhead Meeting, Metalyard, and Summer Breeze Open Air, there haven’t been a lot of collisions between Doritos flavors. Last year, Tangy Pickle and Cool Ranch slammed into each other, and Ultimate Cheddar crashed into Doritos Blaze in 2018. But, this year, we have Loaded Taco smashing into Nacho Cheese as a Sam’s Club exclusive variety.

    If you haven’t tried Doritos Loaded Taco because it’s a Kroger-exclusive, here’s your chance to taste it…if you have a Sam’s Club membership, and if you can pick it out from the Nacho Cheese chips in the pillow-sized bag. To be honest, it’s not difficult to do because the black specks in the Loaded Taco seasoning make them easy to spot. So, there is no Doritos Roulette deception here. However, after you do that, I’m going to suggest you just eat these chips blindly. Don’t even look into the bag again. Let the photo below be the image you look at when you want to peer into Doritos Collisions Loaded Taco and Nacho Cheese bag.

    I’m suggesting this because the two chips complement each other so well that eating them separately would do a disservice to both. To be honest, after opening the bag, I searched for the Loaded Taco chips because there are no Kroger stores near me, but once I tried them together, I decided I would not spend any more time hunting and pecking at Doritos. I will eat them the way the snacking gods intended by blindly shoving multiple chips into my mouth with reckless abandon.

    The Loaded Taco seasoning has all the notes you’d taste with taco seasoning — garlic, onion, tomato, and chili pepper. There’s also a noticeable cheesiness that’s different than the Nacho Cheese seasoning, but when the two chips come together, the Nacho Cheese flavor overwhelms the Loaded Taco’s cheesiness. So it tastes like a taco with a Nacho Cheese Doritos shell. I’m not going to say these replicate like Taco Bell’s Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos, but I can’t but help think of that when I eat this flavor combination. However, if Doritos and Taco Bell decided to rebrand this as “Taco Bell Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos Doritos,” I’d be totally fine with that.

    To be honest, the combination is the most sane of all the Collisions varieties so far. It’s also the one that makes the most sense, a natural pairing, if you will. The others seemed more random, like the folks at Frito Lay threw Doritos like ninja stars at a board, and the first two that stuck would be the two in the bag together.

    Doritos Collisions Loaded Taco and Nacho Cheese is a delicious mashup, and I hope we don’t need to slam down a Sam’s Club membership to buy it someday.

    DISCLOSURE: I received a free product sample. Doing so did not influence my review.

    Purchased Price: FREE
    Size: 18 3/8 oz bag
    Purchased at: (Available at Sam’s Club)
    Rating: 9 out of 10
    Nutrition Facts: (28 grams/about 11 chips) 150 calories, 8 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, less than 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

  • REVIEW: Maruchan Hot & Spicy Chicken Ramen Funyuns

    In my recent review of Korean-Style Sweet & Spicy Chili Ruffles, I whined and pined for more snacks with flavors inspired by the Far East. Well, not two weeks later, the good folks over at Frito Lay obliged.

    Now, I’m not saying they saw the review, called the folks over at Maruchan, brainstormed, decided to collab on new Hot & Spicy Chicken Ramen Funyuns, and then went into a fast-tracked production process that put bags on shelves in world record timing, but… that’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s clearly what happened. The Impulsive Buy has that much pull in the snack industry.

    The pairing was surprising, especially coming from a snack line that rarely remixes the original recipe, but I’m glad these two brands linked up because this is really good. It also made me ponder why we haven’t been sprinkling ramen flavor packets on things other than ramen all this time?

    I have a little bit of a love-only relationship with Funyuns, but I’m happy to say these scratched the flavor itch I was yearning for, as well as the roof of my mouth (more on that later).

    When I opened the bag of what looked like seasoned curly fries, I got a big whiff of poultry seasoning, but it somehow also smelled “hot,” so they were off to an accurate start.

    That accuracy rolled on because, yeah, these taste like crispy Funyuns coated in a packet of spicy chicken ramen seasoning. Mission accomplished.

    There’s a dryness to them that I always get from chicken-flavored snacks. For some reason, I associate that with chicken flavor. These could have easily just been “Spicy Chicken” flavored, but there is a little of that fabled “Asian flare” that I can’t articulate to make it resemble the flavors of a bowl of ramen – a cheap bowl of ramen, but I still like the cheap stuff.

    Since reviewing Spicy Queso Funyuns, I was a little worried that these would also completely swallow up the traditional onion flavor of the Funyuns. But it actually managed to come through a bit on the finish. Maybe it was just a little onion powder in the spice concoction, but I tasted it nevertheless.

    As for the heat level, I’d put these at about two-thirds of the way to “Flamin’ Hot,” which is more than tolerable. You won’t have any problem eating a small bag in one sitting… but you’re gonna tear your mouth up. I somehow avoided that on the Spicy Queso, but the dreaded “savory Cap’n’ Crunch” Funyuns got me this time. That, coupled with the salt and spice, dried my mouth out for hours, but whatever, it was kinda worth it.

    Honestly, this is probably the best Funyuns offshoot I’ve had, and while I think this flavor would have been even better on a chip, I’d love to see a few more ramen-inspired releases.

    That’s back-to-back really tasty Asian-inspired products from Frito Lay. I hope they keep ’em comin’.

    Purchased Price: $2.69
    Size: 2 1/8 oz bag
    Purchased at: 7-Eleven
    Rating: 8 out of 10
    Nutrition Facts: (About 13 pieces) 130 calories, 6 grams of fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 140 milligrams of sodium, 18 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of total sugars, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of protein.