12th Place – Blazin’ Buffalo & Ranch
Starting at the absolute bottom of our ranking sits the confusing combination that never should have existed. The Buffalo sauce-inspired chips should, in theory, offer a bright and buttery heat that complements and counterbalances the coolness of the ranch. What I got was just a confusing intermingling of sauces – like someone went into the sauce aisle at the grocery store and squeezed a little bit of each into a ramekin, swirled it, and dipped a tortilla chip in it. The flavor profile feels like an identity crisis wrapped in orange dust. Several tasters described this flavor with just one word according to recent testing: “no.” You get some spice and ranch-inspired zestiness, but each bite overwhelmingly tastes like artificial butter.
The problem isn’t necessarily the individual elements – Buffalo sauce and ranch are great companions on wings. But translating that magic to a tortilla chip creates something that tastes like it fell off a food truck and rolled under the fryer for too long. I think a Buffalo-flavored chip on its own would be a great addition to the lineup, so long as the brand can channel that buttery essence that makes Buffalo sauce, well, Buffalo sauce. The separation of church and state – Buffalo and ranch – is more than justified here. This flavor takes you for a ride, but not the good kind.
11th Place – Organic Nacho Cheese
Here’s where good intentions meet disappointing execution. And since there’s the USDA Organic seal, this is one Doritos flavor that’s guaranteed to be made without artificial dyes or flavors. But let’s be real: if we’re in the mood for Doritos, we’re not looking for an organic, health-conscious option. The cheese flavor is weak, the texture isn’t as crispy as we’d like, and it’s overall just unsatisfying. When you reach for a bag of Doritos, you’re not exactly thinking about your health – you want that artificial orange dust that stains your fingers and that satisfying crunch.
This organic version feels like someone tried to make a kale smoothie taste like a milkshake. And from a nutrition standpoint, the macros are essentially identical to Nacho Cheese. Not worth it. If you want to eat healthier snacks, there are better options than trying to make Doritos virtuous. Sometimes fake cheese powder is exactly what your soul needs, and this bland impostor just doesn’t deliver.
10th Place – Flamin’ Hot Nacho
This flavor promises fire but delivers disappointment wrapped in aggressive red coloring. Some like it hot, and if you are one of them then Doritos’ Flamin’ Hot Nacho flavor, which hit shelves in 2019, may have seemed like a dream come true. Unfortunately, this attempt to rein in the spicy snack food lover fails on several fronts. Despite the promise its name makes, this chip is not that hot, let alone flamin’. The heat level sits somewhere between mild salsa and your grandmother’s black pepper, which wouldn’t be terrible if the flavor had anything else going for it.
The real tragedy here is what happens to the beloved nacho cheese base. But, I think that the heat wholly eclipses the cheese flavor. There should be some sort of interplay between the two, and since it is a nacho chip, that’s what Doritos should be driving home the most. It’s not a good thing that the only flavor note I got from these chips was “hot.” The result is a chip that tastes like corn and Red 40 food coloring with a whisper of artificial heat. That being said, foragers of the Doritos’ Flamin’ Hot Nacho should be prepared with a boat load of napkins to wipe down their mouth and fingers, which will be instantly and thoroughly stained by an aggressive dose of Red 40 food coloring.
9th Place – Spicy Nacho
Talk about missing the mark by the smallest possible margin. Spicy Nacho Doritos taste maybe 10% different from Nacho Cheese at the most. There’s a lingering feeling of heat on your taste buds that elevates the nacho cheese flavor the teensiest bit. This flavor feels like someone accidentally sneezed some pepper into a bag of regular Nacho Cheese and decided to market it as a new product. The difference is so subtle that you’d probably need to do a side-by-side comparison just to notice anything different.
Recent taste tests confirm this lackluster experience. We can sum these up with a resounding “meh.” Tasters were confused that it didn’t just taste like a spicier version of the original. We all tasted … corn. They weren’t very spicy and didn’t have much cheese flavor, either. One taster thought they tasted nothing whatsoever like the original. It’s like ordering a spicy margarita and getting regular tequila with a single jalapeño seed floating in it. Why settle for this confused middle ground when you could just go for the original?
8th Place – Flamas
Here’s where things get polarizing in the lime department. The seasoning used here is a combination of spicy chile and zesty lime, with the latter seriously overwhelming each bite. This is a “very citrusy” chip, according to several of our tasters. While a handful of people enjoyed it, the lime was too much for almost everybody else (even those who like limón chips in general). This flavor comes from Sabritas, the Mexican subsidiary of Frito Lay, so it has authentic roots, but that doesn’t automatically make it good for everyone’s palate.
The lime here doesn’t taste like fresh citrus squeezed over your favorite street tacos. The first thing you taste as you eat these chips is their lime flavor, which, like many other lime-flavored chips I’ve sampled over the years, tastes like cheap margarita mix – it’s not fresh or inviting. Rather, it’s sour, biting, and super artificial, though its flavor has more direction than the Blazin’ Buffalo & Ranch chips, giving it the upper hand in this ranking. If you’re the type who dumps an entire bottle of lime juice on everything, you might love these. For the rest of us, it’s an assault on the taste buds that makes you wonder if someone confused citric acid with actual flavor.
7th Place – Flamin’ Hot Cool Ranch
The name itself is an oxymoron that should have been a red flag. How do you make something simultaneously cool and flamin’ hot? And when the chip is as distinct in flavor as Cool Ranch is, the overall taste is just muddled and confused. “There’s far too much going on in this chip,” says one of our editors. “It’s not focused enough.” This feels like the result of a corporate meeting where someone said, “Let’s just combine our two most popular things and see what happens.”
The execution doesn’t help matters much. Our same critique for Flamin’ Hot Nacho applies to their Cool Ranch version. It’s not really bringing much in terms of spice beyond bright red dust. We still think that dust tastes better on Cheetos, but at least it makes some sort of sense with Nacho Cheese. You end up with a chip that can’t decide what it wants to be – not ranch enough for ranch lovers, not spicy enough for heat seekers. It’s the dietary equivalent of wearing a winter coat with shorts.
6th Place – Dinamita Chile Limón
Now we’re entering territory where things get interesting, even if they’re not perfect. These are so good on first bite – they’re infinitely crunchable like their distant relative, Takis. Both chips share a lightning strike of bright, puckery citrus kick, and each rolled Dinamita Chile Limón chip is stacked with seasoning. These rolled tortilla chips were clearly inspired by the Takis phenomenon, and they do capture some of that addictive quality that makes you reach for handful after handful.
The problem comes in the aftertaste department. What really tanked their points, for me, is the intense lime seasoning aftertaste; it reached an uncanny valley where my brain just registered it as the general lime flavor that’s also present in many fruity cereals, over a more fresh spritz of lime other lime chips have achieved. Frito-Lay launched Dortios Dinamita Chile Limón nearly ten years ago as a Takis-inspired rolled tortilla snack. It might not be as spicy as the OG, but compared to the rest of the brand’s offerings, it’s pretty darn solid. They’re good, but they feel more like a decent imitation than an original masterpiece.
5th Place – Salsa Verde
This flavor deserves credit for being genuinely unique in the Doritos lineup. Salsa verde and Doritos are the combo we didn’t know we needed. The bright and fresh flavors of jalapeño, onion, and tomato make these much lighter than the standard Dorito offerings. It’s also balanced with savory flavor coming from both MSG and chicken broth. When you bite into one of these, you actually get the essence of that green salsa you love dipping your restaurant chips into, minus the dripping mess.
The execution is surprisingly sophisticated for a mass-market snack chip. I enjoy Salsa Verde and Doritos separately so very much, and together they make a wonderful, well-spiced, and vinegary chip that really does have the essence of a freshly made salsa. However, there’s a significant availability problem that keeps these from ranking higher. However, we’re docking a few points for being nearly impossible to find at most grocery stores. What good is a great flavor if you can’t actually buy it when the craving hits?
4th Place – Sweet & Tangy BBQ
BBQ flavoring on tortilla chips shouldn’t work as well as it does, but here we are. BBQ is one of the most wonderful (and popular!) snack flavors of all time, and the Sweet & Tangy BBQ Doritos are, yes, a pretty great chip. Each one has a balanced sweet-mesquite smokiness that transports you to a saucy BBQ brisket joint. This flavor manages to capture that sticky, sweet, smoky essence that makes you want to lick your fingers after eating ribs, but in chip form.
The main critique here isn’t about the flavor itself, but about whether it’s the right canvas. These taste essentially identical (albeit, a bit spicier) to the Fritos Honey BBQ Flavor Twists, which is why they’ve found themselves in the eighth spot. Personally, I think this flavor is better suited to a rolled Frito (with a whole lot more crunchy intrigue and surface area) or even a kettle-cooked potato chip than the straightforward triangle of a Dorito. Doritos can do so many other flavors better (like cheesy and ranch-y), so this just isn’t their showdown to win. It’s a good chip that might be on the wrong chip.
3rd Place – Flamin’ Hot Limón
This is where the Flamin’ Hot line finally gets it right. Tart chips can be polarizing, but Flamin’ Hot Limón is the best Flamin’ Hot Dorito we tasted. The heat hits at the end so you can eat a significant amount without blowing out your palate. The lime is truly the star here. So if you like limón chips, grab a bag. Unlike its confused cousin Flamas, this flavor manages to balance the citrus and heat in a way that actually works.
What makes this flavor successful is the restraint in both departments. What’s interesting about all of the Flamin’ Hot Doritos is that the spiciness doesn’t hit you until after you swallow the chips, when you’ll feel a little bit of warmth doing a tap dance on the tip of your tongue. They’re not formidably spicy, though I think you could underestimate their heat if you ate a handful in a single sitting. The lime doesn’t overwhelm like in other lime-flavored varieties, and the heat builds gradually rather than smacking you in the face. It’s proof that when Doritos takes time to balance their flavors properly, they can create something special.
2nd Place – Nacho Cheese
The OG that started it all (well, technically Taco was first, but who’s counting?). That being said, Nacho Cheese Doritos are very good and highly iconic. The flavor is cheesy and a little zesty. My favorite part is the thick layer of cheese dust it leaves on my fingers. It’s such an iconic chip that Taco Bell turned it into a taco shell! This is the flavor that defined what Doritos could be – that perfect marriage of corn chip and artificial cheese that somehow tastes better than real cheese in this context.
The staying power of this flavor speaks volumes about its quality. But if the criteria include popularity across decades and constant availability amid trendy flavors that show up and disappear through the years, the best Doritos flavor ranked would have to be Nacho Cheese. No matter where it appears on lists of Doritos flavors ranked by popularity, it’s been a staple of the collection since being introduced in 1972. If the list of Doritos flavors ranked by staying power indicates the best flavors overall, Nacho Cheese tops the list. It’s the comfort food of the chip world – reliable, satisfying, and somehow never boring despite being exactly what you expect every single time.
1st Place – Cool Ranch
The undisputed champion of the Doritos world, and for good reason. There isn’t much to say about Cool Ranch Doritos that hasn’t been said before. The chip that more than a few people consider to be the best of all time is incredibly hard to top. The new edition boasts even more ranch flavor, which is something I did not know we needed, but here we are. It’s still great. This flavor doesn’t just taste like ranch dressing on a chip – it tastes like the Platonic ideal of what ranch could be.
What makes Cool Ranch truly special is its complexity hiding behind apparent simplicity. The taste is INCREDIBLE. They can call it Cool Ranch but to me it feels like they should call it “Cool Ranch, featuring Sour Cream and Onion.” The different flavors are well balanced and there is really nothing you can improve on this. Literally zero notes. Absolute perfection. Could not be improved in any way. Cool Ranch Doritos are the best Doritos on the false Doritos binary. When a flavor achieves this level of balance and addictiveness, you know you’ve found something special. It’s not just a snack chip – it’s a masterpiece disguised as junk food.
What surprised you most about these rankings?
