The Best Unexpected Ways To Use Potato Chips In Meals

Anyone who’s taken even a cursory glance at the snack section in their grocery store recently will be able to tell you that potato chips are versatile. Chips are the perfect base for myriad flavors, from burgers to Korean fried chicken, and everything in between (including those not focused on meat/fast food vibes). Where they’re a little less versatile, though, is in the kitchen – at least most of the time. Potato chips are more destined to be eaten while you’re cooking your dinner as a snack than as part of your dinner itself as an ingredient.

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But it needn’t be this way, folks! There are loads of ways to incorporate potato chips into meals – and before you say it, not just as a mac and cheese topping or a crust for your fish or chicken. No, no: Here I’m talking about unexpected ways to incorporate them. Out of potatoes or breadcrumbs? You’ll love these.

Spanish Omelettes With Potato Chips

Spanish omelettes, or tortillas, are packed with layers of thinly sliced potatoes, which are then fried until tender and bound together with the egg mixture. Now, don’t get me wrong, they’re utterly delicious when made from scratch – but if you don’t have a lot of time, or a mandolin, then you might want to speed things up.

Enter potato chips. Instead of cooking sliced potatoes, throw some generous handfuls of potato chips into your egg mixture before pouring it into your pan. As the egg sets, the potatoes will soften. Go for salted potato chips here, so you don’t take your dish in a strange flavor direction. Unless you want to.

Crab Cakes

Crab cakes need a binder, and if you don’t have breadcrumbs in your kitchen, potato chips are the next best thing. In fact, they may be even better: They’ll season your crab cakes from the inside, and give them a touch more texture than you’d get with breadcrumbs. If you don’t want a rougher texture, though, you can just crush your chips up really finely. Oh, and this isn’t just gimmickry: Using potato chips makes crab cakes gluten-free.

Picnic Nachos

I love picnic nachos. Hopefully, you love them too – otherwise you’ll hate this next suggestion. By picnic nachos, I mean a mound of deli meat, pickles, salsa, shredded cheese – whatever you want, really – piled onto potato chips, with no cooking required. Yes, it’s messy, but that’s kinda the fun of it. Just rip open your bag, make a plate with the foil, layer on your ingredients, and share with your friends.

Potato Soup

There are several ways to use potato chips in potato soup. Adding them as a topping is one of them, and a fine one at that, giving your soup more crunch and textural variety. Personally, though, I think that adding them to the soup is better. Using chips in soup can thicken it when it feels a little thin and amp up its flavor when it feels a little flat. Just crush, mix, and simmer, allowing the soup to break them down and incorporate. Oh, and if you want texture in your soup, you can leave some nice, chunky bits for everyone to find.