The Only Summer Salad Recipe You’ll Ever Need: Barbecue Potato Chip Salad

It all started when I was asked to bring a salad to a potluck. I like salad ok, but making it feels hard and complicated. I figured I could come up with something that presents as a salad, but that skipped all of that difficult washing and chopping business. I think what I came up with is the perfect solution, so of course, I wanted to share it here as part of our Very Serious Summer Posts for Admin series. Here’s how you can make this special and unique salad for your next neighborhood or family BBQ.

Step 1: Go Shopping

Visit your local grocery store and find the “Chips” aisle. You will quickly find many flavors and styles of barbecue-flavored chips. Start with a classic, like Lay’s. Then look for varying sizes and shapes such as Fritos Twists, or Popchips Ridges. At some stores you might be able to find Hippeas Bohemian Barbeque or Bugles Barbeque. Whatever you do, don’t get two that look the same. The magic is the variety of crunches and flavors. Search for 4-5 differing shapes for best success.

Step 2: Assemble the Salad

When you are home, find a desirable bowl. I like to use plain white because it really makes the chip colors pop, but you can decide what you like best. Begin by opening the classic Lay’s Barbecue potato chip bag. Pour ½ of the bag into the bowl. Proceed with opening each bag and pouring ½ of the contents into the bowl. Depending on how big your bowl is and how big you want your salad to be, you can repeat with the remaining chips if you’d like.

Step 3: Mix and Serve

Use a wooden spoon or your hands to very gently toss the salad until is it well mixed. Don’t do this too much, though. Over-mixing will cause the smaller chips to fall to the bottom of the bowl and the overall effect will be ruined (I learned this the hard way!).

If you really want to turn up the smiles, add a tub of cottage cheese to use for dip. As Kim Severson of the New York Times says, “Eat cottage cheese the way cheese makers do after they finish a batch: Rip open a bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips and use it like a dip.”

And there you have it! The perfect summer salad. I hope you and everyone at your next BBQ enjoy it as much as we do at my house.