I have to say right from the beginning that I’m surprised that no one else has done this before. I mean, just about every veggie known to man has been fried, except the jalapeno. Personally, I think it’s genius! If you like jalapenos, do read on as this is something you must know about.

Ingredients: jalapenos, canola oil, cornstarch, whey, buttermilk solids, cheeses (cheddar and granular), whey protein concentrate, salt, sodium phosphate, citric acid, yellow 5 & 6, lacyic acid, enzyme

The good: Pure jalapeno flavor combined with cheddar. Does it really get much better than that? Okay, maybe it does, but this comes close to being a bag of pure bliss. Of course, that’s just my personal opinion. It happens to be the opinion of my 4-year-old son, Josh, as well. How do I know this. I mistakenly left the bag out and turned my head. When I turned back around, he had a mouth full of these uttering the phrase, “These are great!” Ah, our little chilehead in training. Anyway, going back to the good, I have to say that the color of the jalapenos holds out pretty well after being fried. You can’t say that about every vegetable. It’s nice, bright green under the poof of cheddar. The cheddar isn’t so cheesy that you lose the jalapeno and not light enough that you can’t taste the cheese. I’d say it’s a great combo of flavors that balance pretty well. Like jalapenos in nature, some are more spicy than others. So, you could have a mild mouthful one time and be blown away the next taste. The variance makes it interesting. Just ask Josh.

The bad: 1) They’re small. When I first tasted them I thought, if I had control over the cut of the jalapenos, I would do a diagonal cut to make the chip pieces bigger. I have no idea if that can be done or if its been tried, but it’s a thought. 2) The bag is small and the taste is large. When Josh had his mouthful of chips I guarantee he had at least 1/4 – 1/3 the bag. The calories are 50/serving and there are 5 servings which makes a bag 250 calories. In short, they’re yummy, but you have to watch the intake. This is VERY hard to do once you’ve tried them. We’ve already ordered more…a lot more. 3) They only come in cheddar. Again, I have no idea if the company plans on expanding flavors, but I would love to see that happen. I’d particularly like to see ranch and blue cheese flavors.

The future: We’ve talked about using this in recipes, but thus far haven’t wanted to sacrifice a bag to the venture since they’re so good right out of the bag. That said, I can see these chips being used in place of french fried onions (even thought they’re not real onions) in a fresh green been casserole. I think this would also be an extremely good salad topper. If you mixed this with breading, it would be a nice coating for chicken or fish, as well. When I decide to sacrifice one of the bags to the recipe Gods, I’ll let you know how it works out, no doubt. Until then, I’m just going to keep on munching and hide them from the youngin’.

You can get this fine product by going to the Deano’s Jalapenos site. If you’ve tried this product by itself or in a recipe, please consider sharing that here.

ADDITION: Okay, so I tried it as a salad topper. I just LOVE this product. The chips stay crunchy even when in salad dressing for while, which is awesome. Plus, every time you have a bite with them in it, your mouth explodes with flavor. These are highly addicting! I would think that anyone who loves hot and spicy foods would love to find these in their salad. I swear, when I think of this product the following phrase comes to mind…”You complete me.” Here’s a pic of the salad.