Walkers Ready Salted Crisps, 14 x 25g

Ready salted is the crisp with nothing to hide. This box holds fourteen 25g bags of Walkers Ready Salted, 350g in total, and the ingredients list is four items long: potatoes, vegetable oils, salt and antioxidants. For households that want a plain crisp every day, it is a fortnight's supply at a bag a day.

Why it is called ready salted

Early packets of crisps in Britain came plain, with a twist of salt in a small paper sachet so that people could season them themselves. Ready salted simply means the salt is already on. The name stuck long after the sachet disappeared, and it still marks the plain crisp in the British range. For anyone curious about the old way, we also stock Walkers Salt and Shake, which comes with a separate salt sachet in each bag.

The ingredients, all four

According to the published pack listing, the crisps are made from potatoes, sunflower and rapeseed oils in varying proportions, salt, and antioxidants: rosemary extract, ascorbic acid, a tocopherol rich extract and citric acid. The pack says the potatoes are 100% Great British potatoes.

The antioxidants are there for the oil. Frying oil slowly reacts with oxygen and turns stale, and that stale taste is more noticeable in a plain crisp, where there is no seasoning to cover it. Rosemary extract and the tocopherol rich extract slow that change, and ascorbic and citric acid help them. The pack also says the bags are packaged in a protective atmosphere, which keeps oxygen out until each bag is opened.

Numbers for one bag

The label gives 130 kcal, 7.8g of fat, 0.6g of saturates, 13g of carbohydrate, 0.1g of sugars, 1.1g of fibre, 1.6g of protein and 0.3g of salt for a 25g bag. Per 100g that is 519 kcal, 31g of fat, 2.3g of saturates, 0.4g of sugars and 1.2g of salt. On the UK front of pack scale fat is high, saturates and salt are medium, and sugars are low. One bag is about 7% of an average adult's daily energy reference intake, 11% of the fat and 5% of the salt.

The fat figure, 31g per 100g, is a little higher than the 29g of the seasoned Walkers flavours. That fits with a plain crisp being only potato, oil and salt: in a seasoned crisp, some of the weight is seasoning powder rather than oil.

Allergens and diet

No allergens from the UK list of 14 are highlighted in the published ingredients. The allergy advice says the crisps may contain cereals containing gluten, milk, mustard and soya. The pack states they are suitable for vegetarians, with no added MSG or artificial colours. No vegan claim is made, and with milk in the may contain advice we would not describe them as vegan. No gluten free claim is made. Recipes and factory arrangements change, so check the allergy advice on the pack you receive.

How the crisps are made

A plain crisp shows the process most clearly. Potatoes are washed and sliced thin, the slices are rinsed to wash off surface starch, and they are fried until nearly all the water has cooked out, leaving a brittle sheet of set starch and oil. Salt is scattered over the warm crisps so it sticks, and that is all. The colour of a plain crisp tells you about the potato: potatoes with more natural sugar fry to a deeper gold.

Why keep a box of plain crisps

Ready salted is the most useful crisp in the kitchen, because it adds crunch and salt without adding a flavour of its own. It suits a dip of any kind, crumbled over a soup or a salad, pressed into a sandwich with a strong filling, or crushed as a coating for chicken. It is also the easy choice for a children's party or a lunchbox when you are not sure of everyone's taste. And because the seasoning is only salt, a plain crisp is the fairest way to compare one brand's potato and oil with another's: it is the crisp with nowhere to hide.

Other ways to buy it

For fewer bags, Walkers Ready Salted comes as a six bag multipack of 25g bags; for the table there is a 150g sharing bag; for one person a 45g bag. The Walkers Ready Salted and Cheese and Onion box holds seven bags of each, and ready salted is in every size of the Walkers Classic Variety box. For less salt, Walkers Lightly Salted gives 0.15g of salt per 25g bag on its label, half the figure here.

Storage

The pack advises a cool, dry place. Keep the box away from the cooker and sunny windows, keep the bags sealed until the day they are eaten, and finish a bag once it is opened, while the crisps are at their crunchiest.

Sizes of Walkers Ready Salted Crisps we stock

Figures as published on each pack's label.

The published listing gives the United Kingdom as the country of origin and names Walkers Snack Foods Ltd as the maker. The tasting notes on this page are our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.