How do I make BBQ flavoring for potato chips?
Follow-up to my previous post: I looked up the ingredients in Lay’s BBQ potato chips and Cape Cod BBQ potato chips and they both contain tomato powder. I’m thinking I might be right about this being an integral component of the barbecue potato chip flavor.
I had an “A HA” moment that worked pretty well for me. I had a bottle of BBQ sauce. I had split some on the roasting pan I made some chicken on. It was dried out and I noticed it turned to a crushable powder when I scraped it off. I took the pile, sliced up some potatoes and tossed them with the dried out BBQ sauce… pay dirt. It worked like a charm because when it hit the hot potatoes it adhered to the chips and gave them the flavor one would expected. You have plenty of options for drying it out. I have to imagine you might be able to spread it thinly on a roasting pan, put it in a convection oven and let it dry out that way. You can also experiment with a microwave and some different surfaces to put the sauce on.
I thought about a dry rub, but when you season potato chips, the standard practice seems to be that you do so after they’re cooked by tossing them with the seasoning. Most dry rubs are intended to be cooked, so at the very least that would affect the flavor mixture. To the extent that I’ve tasted them, dry rubs usually don’t taste very good right out of the jar.
Okay, the first batch was good. Not great, but this is definitely on the right track. Tomato powder, mesquite powder, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, caster sugar, and salt is a tasty mix. It’s okay plain, but much better on the chips themselves. This blend would probably also be good on chicken. Now I need to get the proportions right…
