New Lay’s French Onion Soup Potato Chips Are Here—and I Tried Them

French onion soup might be my favorite food. (If you recall me saying something else was my favorite food, hush—it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.) I love trying it at different restaurants. I love a wet crouton suspended in savory, beefy broth. I love carefully portioning the melty cheese so I can have a perfect last bite. I love it at nice French restaurants where they make sure it’s perfectly seasoned with thyme and a glug of red wine or sherry for depth, but I love it just as much at my local Outback Steakhouse, where the prevalent flavor component is “salty.”

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I was REALLY excited when I found out that Lay’s was releasing French Onion Soup flavored Wavy Lay’s as part of their World Cup lineup, along with Brazilian-Style Garlic Sauce Lay’s and Argentinian-Style Steak and Chimichurri Lay’s. Funyun Onion Wavy Lay’s are probably my favorite chips of all time, so I couldn’t wait to see how they’d translate the flavor of caramelized onions, beef bouillon, and melty gruyere. Welp, I’m sorry to report that they kinda blew it!

New Product!

Lay’s Wavy French Onion Soup

Target

Pros: They’re potato chips, so that’s good! Who doesn’t love potato chips? And if you concentrate really hard, you can taste all of the components: there’s a beefy flavor, a little bit of thyme, a very mild onion flavor, and some cheesiness on the finish. But all in all, the flavor is very mild when French onion soup is an absolute flavor bomb. But hey, I guess if you don’t really like onions, you might just like these new Lay’s.

Cons: Man, I really wanted these to taste oniony and it breaks my heart that they don’t. And honestly, they get less and less oniony as you eat. Eventually, they just taste kind of bitter. Like I said, the elements are there if you really concentrate and search for them, but also like I said, French onion soup is SO flavorful, why am I hunting? They really fall flat. After a few chips, you just taste a bitter herb and something akin to black pepper—or like the spices in beef bouillon that aren’t beef. There’s beef fat listed in the ingredients, but you’d never know it. If you want flavorful, onion-y chips, get the Funyuns Lay’s instead.

Credit: Liv Averett / Target

Rating:

6/10

Sporks

About the Author

Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks. Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction. Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home. Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.