Sporked Awards: Best Snack Food We Tasted in 2023

We ate a lot of really great snacks in 2023. Big shout out to Pan’s vegan mushroom jerky, Kroger’s Bavarian-style soft pretzel sticks, and Trader Joe’s Super Seedy Cheese Snack Bites. But when we sat down and really thought about it, there were two crunchy snacks that really made an impression on us. These snacks were innovations within their category, and we can’t stop thinking about eating handful after handful.

Runner-Up

Quaker Dill Pickle Rice Crisps

Ralphs

You might think you know rice cakes. You might think they’re relics of ‘80s diet culture and extremely boring. Well, allow us to introduce you to these mini Quaker pickle-flavored rice crisps. They’re much crispier and crunchier than a traditional rice cake. And they have so much actual pickle flavor. They’re briny! Most pickle-flavored things (and there were a lot of them this year) taste like dill. But these taste like actual, vinegary pickle. They made their way onto our list of the best rice cakes and there they will stay.

Credit: Merc / Ralphs

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

Winner

Wavy Lay’s Cuban Sandwich

GoPuff

Lay’s came out with a trio of new sandwich-flavored chips this year. The Buffalo chicken sandwich chip was fine. The BLT chip was better. But the Cuban sandwich chip? Oh, mama. You can taste the ham. You can taste the roast pork. You can taste the mustard and the pickles. You even get hints of nutty Swiss cheese. Absolutely incredible. And, of course, they still have the wonderful crunchy crispiness of a Wavy Lay’s. If you see these chips out in the wild, buy them all. This is the best snack we tried in 2023—and one of this year’s more impressive feats of food science.

Credit: Merc / GoPuff

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

The 2023 Sporked Awards

We ate our way through hundreds of products this year to find the best. Now it’s time to honor the best of the best.