Ore-Ida CrouTots Just Dropped—Here's What We Know!

There are very few things that don’t belong in a salad. Vegetables? Obviously. Fruits? Indubitably. Cheese? If you are fancy. Chunks of toasted buttery garlic bread? If you’re cool. Meat? If you don’t want to be hungry later. Cookies and marshmallows and Snickers bars? If you are in the Midwest, sure! But one thing I have never thought to put on a salad is a tater tot. Not because I think that would be bad (in retrospect, many of my past salads would have absolutely been bangin’ if given this treatment), but because the thought simply never crossed my mind. But alas, that is why the good people over at Ore-Ida did us all a favor and created tater tots specifically for this purpose. That’s right, you can now buy Ore-Ida CrouTots. This is not a drill—everybody romaine calm.

Are they just Ore-Ida Tater Tots in a different bag? Or are they like, potato chippy in texture? What is the concept here?

You know, it’s not super clear exactly what the Ore-Idans have cooked up for us. The CrouTots come frozen like regular tater tots and a press release says they have a “satisfying crunch and savory flavor.” But then again, they describe their regular tots as “fluffy,” so that leads me to believe these CrouTots are a whole different thing and decidedly crunchier than regular ol’ run-of-the-mill tots. The brand also says that it has “reimagined a classic topping in a way only the inventor of the Tater Tots could,” so I have to believe that these are more crouton than tot in texture but more tot than crouton in taste, which would put these in the realm of a TJ’s mochi nugget/clump of Pik-Nik sticks type of texture. But the truth is, we won’t know until we try them, and as is our duty as profession food taste testers, we simply MUST try them.

If you, too, are a tot-al tot fanatic and want to give these a go, they are available exclusively on GoPuff starting September 30 for $1.50 a bag (yes, only $1.50! In this economy!). They are around for a limited time only, and only in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh, while supplies last. So if you are sitting there, holding up a potato and asking yourself, “To croutot or not to croutot?” We say croutot while you can before this tot topping says ta-ta and leaves (virtual) store shelves forever.