We taste-tested 10 brands of frozen fries you’re likely to find at your local supermarket. To find the very best one, we sampled each without knowing which brand was which. Our winner is Grown in Idaho Hand-Cut Style Fries, but we also crowned two runners-up.
Fries are a classic side for burgers, steak, and even California burritos. While it’s certainly possible to make your own fries at home, there’s no denying the ease and convenience of frozen fries. (In fact, McDonald’s fries start frozen, too.) All you have to do is open the package, toss them into the oven or air fryer, and voilà: hot, crispy, golden brown fries. The question is: Which brand is worth buying?
To find the very best fries, our editors sampled 10 different brands that you’re likely to find in the freezer aisle of your local grocery store. We opted for classic hand-cut style fries—no shoestring fries or British chips here! We cooked each fry according to the package directions, then sampled them in random order without knowing which was which. After snacking our way through many, many potatoes, we tabulated the results and crowned an overall winner, as well as two worthy contenders that we’d be happy to snack on again.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
The Criteria
Great fries should be golden and crisp on the outside, with a soft, fluffy interior that tastes unmistakably of potatoes. Salt is essential—the fries should be seasoned enough that you’d be happy to eat them on their own, without any ketchup or other condiments. They should be satisfyingly crisp but not brittle, and should be able to hold their shape for at least as long as it takes to eat a whole serving. They should be thick enough to have a good balance of crispy exterior and fluffy interior, but not so large that they resemble potato wedges.
Overall Winner
Grown in Idaho Hand-Cut Style Fries
These fries had the strongest potato flavor of all of the ones we tested, which our editors appreciated. “Excellent fries—definitely ones I’d buy again,” wrote our associate culinary director, Laila, who praised their well-balanced seasoning. “There’s a weirdly cheesy flavor here, but then again, the fry is also very potato-y,” wrote our editorial director, Daniel, who also found them decently crispy. Our senior social media editor, Kelli, liked the seasoning and the fact that the fries had a bit of potato skin, which makes them slightly rustic and more homemade seeming. Meanwhile, our visuals editor, Jessie, enjoyed the savory flavor and crisp texture. Our associate visuals director, Amanda, was the only taster who thought the texture was a touch too soft: “A lil squishy but not mad at it.”
Runners-Up
Kirkand Signature Extra-Crispy French Fries
Some of our editors couldn’t stop raving about these fries, especially their outstanding texture. “It’s crispy! It’s salty! There’s even skin. It’s everything I want in a fry!” wrote Kelli. Daniel appreciated the “slurry’d starchy exterior,” and associate creative director, Sabrina, enjoyed that the fries had what she describes as a “gritty” (in a good way) texture, which reminded her of the version at Popeyes. Most tasters liked the salt levels, although Laila wished there was a bit more to help enhance the potato flavor.
Sonic Frozen Fries
These frozen fries were the skinniest of the contenders—closer to shoestring than hand-cut—but they made a strong impression on our editors. Most editors called them the crispiest fries of the bunch. “Crisp and skin on, yes please!” wrote Kelli, further cementing her status as a skin-on fry lover. Jessie didn’t think they were salty enough, but still enjoyed them, while Amanda thought they were well-seasoned. Meanwhile, Laila appreciated the potato-forward flavor of these fries, but found them a touch too dry; they did not have the soft, fluffy interior she looks for in exceptional ones.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Contenders
- Alexia House Cut Fries
- Grown in Idaho Hand-Cut Style Fries
- Jesse & Ben’s Classic Sea Salt House-Cut Fries
- Kirkand Signature Extra-Crispy French Fries
- McCain Extra Crispy Classic Fries
- Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Fast-Food Style Frozen Fries
- Sonic Frozen Fries
- Strong Roots Crispy Skinny Fries
- Trader Joe’s Handsome Cut Potato Fries
- 365 by Whole Foods Market Straight-Cut Fries
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
Most frozen fries are made with potatoes, neutral oil, salt, and a combination of starches. The products our editors liked the most typically include functional additives—such as leavening agents, crisping aids, and stabilizers—that help the fries brown more evenly and stay crisp after cooking.
Our winner, Grown in Idaho Hand-Cut Style Fries, is made with skin-on Idaho potatoes, a blend of vegetable oils that the label says may include canola, palm, soybean, or sunflower, and a mix of starches, including potato, corn, tapioca, and rice flour. It also includes dextrin, a starch-derived carbohydrate often used to boost crispiness in fried foods, and dextrose, a form of sugar that promotes browning. Xanthan gum, a thickener that helps the ingredients adhere to the surface more evenly, is also listed.
Our two runners-up—Kirkand Signature Extra-Crispy French Fries and Sonic Frozen Fries—have nearly identical ingredients: Both include the same base of potatoes, oil, and starches (corn and tapioca), along with rice flour, salt, dextrin, and xanthan gum.
Meanwhile, our lowest-scoring frozen fries only include potatoes, oil, and sodium acid pyrophosphate, a color-retention agent. Notably, they omit the key starches and crisping agents found in our editor’s favorite fries. While fries with minimal ingredients can still taste good, the most reliably crisp frozen fries use a few more ingredients, including starch blends and other additives that give each fry its signature golden, crackly exterior.
Our Testing Methodology
All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets, ranking the samples according to various criteria. All data is tabulated, and results are calculated with no editorial input to provide the most impartial representation of actual results possible.
