You’re missing out if you’ve never tried Quest’s protein chips.
Quest was one of the first companies to come out with protein chips, and since the release, other companies have followed suit. Legendary Foods recently came out with a popped protein chip, which is surprisingly satisfying. On the other hand, Beyond Chipz protein tortilla chips were a huge disappointment.
I’ll spoil the review for you: Quest Chips are incredible.
When you look at the macros, you would never anticipate that they would taste like regular chips, but Quest was somehow able to accomplish exactly that.
140 calories for a bag of chips is relatively standard, but nearly 20 grams of protein is insane.
To be able to turn those macros into a crunchy chip with delicious flavor is nothing short of extraordinary.
All of that being said, not all flavors are created equally. Quest has two types of protein chips: original style, which is more like a baked potato chip, and tortilla style, which is exactly what it sounds like.
For the purposes of this ranking, I’ll group them all together, but the tortilla-style chips are the superior product in my mind. I’ll break down each flavor below, but here is my ranking of all 9 Quest protein chips:
- Cheddar & Sour Cream
- Sour Cream & Onion
- Chili Lime
- BBQ
- Ranch
- Nacho Cheese
- Taco
- Hot & Spicy
- Spicy Sweet Chili
Don’t get it twisted: I enjoy every flavor of Quest chips, and I wouldn’t be upset if you handed me any of the flavors. I do feel like there is a tier break after Ranch and the top 5 are better than the others, but you won’t go wrong with any of them.
9. Cheddar & Sour Cream Quest Chips
The “original style” chips offer a slightly less satisfying crunch than the tortilla-style chips, and this particular flavor seemed to have the lowest crunch factor of them all.
There is a very generous seasoning on these chips, but since it is laid on so heavily, it seems to take away from the crunch.
Overall, there is plenty of flavor to these chips, but the flavor leans much more sour cream than cheddar, putting it at the bottom of my list.
8. Sour Cream & Onion Quest Chips
The two sour cream chips sit at the bottom of my list, but it’s certainly not for a lack of flavor. I much prefer these sour cream & onion chips to the sour cream & cheddar, but the crunch factor is still a bit disappointing.
If you love sour cream & onion chips, the taste of these chips won’t disappoint you, but there are much better options as we go through this ranking.
7. Chili Lime Quest Chips
All of the tortilla-style protein chips are indistinguishable from the likes of Doritos in aesthetic, thickness, and crunch. Regarding the eating experience, there is nothing to complain about here.
These chili lime protein chips have a really impressive kick from the chili pepper, but the lime flavor is incredibly strong. I love those “hint of lime” tortilla chips, but these protein chips contain a much stronger lime flavor throughout.
Luckily, the heat balances the acidity of the lime very well, so this is still a solid option.
6. BBQ Quest Chips
Of all the “original-style” Quest chips, BBQ is far and away the most impressive.
The texture of these chips reminds me so much of baked potato chips. If you’ve ever enjoyed a bag of Baked Lay’s, then you’ll love these Quest chips. If that kind of chip is unfamiliar to you, consider it extremely close to a Pringle as well.
The BBQ flavor of these chips is excellent- it’s a great balance of smokey and sweet without going overboard on the smoke flavor (where many BBQ chips fail, in my opinion).
You’d truly never know that these were protein chips. If you gave these to someone who did not know any better, they’d definitely think these were just baked chips.
5. Ranch Quest Chips
These Ranch Quest Chips are incredible, so it pains me to rank them as the 5th best option, but that should tell you just how good the rest of the flavors are.
Many ranch-flavored chips just taste like a packet of ranch seasoning, but these Quest chips give off actual Cool Ranch Doritos vibes. I mean, they even look like Doritos.
4. Nacho Cheese Quest Chips
If you’re searching for a Doritos-like experience, the ranch flavor will serve you better than this nacho cheese flavor. But, the amount of seasoning on these chips combined with the satisfying crunch put these one notch about the ranch chips in my ranking.
The flavor leans more towards cheddar cheese powder than a Doritos-style coating, but these are loaded with cheesy flavor.
You may not be fooled into thinking you’re eating Doritos, but it’s one of the better nacho cheese chips I’ve ever had, protein or not.
3. Loaded Taco Quest Chips
The Loaded Taco experience is unlike anything I’ve ever had. Somehow Quest was able to capture all of the flavors of a taco in a single chip… yes, you can even taste the lettuce.
The accuracy of the flavor blows my mind enough to put this flavor in my top 3, but the caveat here is that these are not one of my go-to flavors to snack on.
As fun and delicious as these chips are, the taco flavor is just not something I find myself craving as a mid-day snack.
But these chips are unmatched as a plate of nachos. These hold up surprisingly well with toppings, and the flavor lends itself perfectly to a plate of loaded protein nachos.
2. Hot & Spicy Quest Chips
I did a full flavor review of these hot & spicy Quest chips which you can read here if you are interested.
Here’s your summary: these protein chips are out of this world.
As a lover of all things spicy, these Quest chips deliver more than I ever could have hoped for. If you don’t handle spicy food well, then this will not be the flavor for you. On the spice scale, I put these chips at around 7.5/10.
To me, the heat level is not so insane that it makes the experience unpleasant, but they’re hot enough that you definitely want to have some water close by.
1. Spicy Sweet Chili Quest Chips
My top spot goes to Spicy Sweet Chili, which Quest absolutely nailed. While certainly spicy, there is a perfect balance of spicy & sweet.
The initial taste is sweet, but it is closely followed by the recognizable spicy, sour, and salty flavors that make sweet chili sauce so delicious.
I firmly believe that the spicy sweet chili Doritos (the purple bag) are the best chips out there, and these Quest chips taste shockingly close to those.
If I can enjoy the best-tasting chip in the world while getting in 20 grams of extra protein, I’ll take that every time.
