Here we are, another Trader Joe’s impulse buy that we just had to try.  Trader Joe’s loves their “Everything But the Bagel” line, featuring it as its own pure seasoning blend (pretty good!), on smoked salmon (not great!), and now on these potato chips.  Time to give them a try!

I will say up front that I am a big fan of the classic everything bagel.  I love poppy and sesame seeds, and appreciate the occasional bit of dehydrated onion and garlic for a little bit of bite.  But these flavors do not work well with potato chips.  To me, the chips came across as very onion-y, but in an unpleasant, burnt onion way.  As expected, the sesame seeds and poppy seeds don’t really add any new flavors to the mix, so it’s just an overpowering, oniony potato chip.  Most of the poppy and sesame seeds settle to the bottom of the bag as well, so the top chips are very sparse in terms of toppings, while the bottom ones are loaded.  The permeating onion flavor is evenly spread throughout.

The chips themselves seemed to be of good quality – a nice, thick kettle cooked potato chip.  They were very crunchy and a little greasy, which is how I like my kettle chips.  But because of the offensive onion flavor, I would very much prefer a regular kettle chip to these.

I honestly couldn’t get over the funky onion flavor of these chips, and worst of all, the onion flavors overwhelmed the flavors of everything else I was trying to eat in my lunch.  If I had to eat these again, I would pair them with a very hearty dip that could stand up to the onion flavor, such as my Radish and Chive Dip or my Festive Cream Cheese with Radish, Dill, and Lemon.  Any form of onion dip may also work well here.

So, if you love strong onion flavored chips, you will like these!  I personally will not be buying these again, and would classify this as a miss in the Trader Joe’s line of “Everything but the Bagel” products. 

Let me know in the comments below your thoughts if you tried them, or any fun ways that you enjoyed eating them!