One of my favorite pairings ever is potato chips and sparkling wine.  But you know what makes that even better?  

Take the best potatoes, Idaho Potatoes, of course, turn them into your own homemade potato chips and pair them with some sparkling wine from the same region…Idaho.

Sparkling wine pairs perfectly with foods like a good potato chip because of the acidity in sparkling wine. The acidity will balance (and enhance) any salty, fatty snack.  It also acts as a palate cleanser and the end result will definitely be:  addictive potato chips followed by one sip after another after another.

The Best Side Dish

As you know, I bring bubbly to any celebration.  So when I can bring an appetizer that pairs perfectly with the bubbly I bring, that’s even better.  

This will soon be your new favorite side dish to bring to any summer BBQ or celebration.  Any potato chip lover will love this much more than the typical bag of potato chips that’s placed out on the buffet table at a BBQ.  

These homemade chips can be served up a variety of ways at a BBQ.  Here are two ideas:  

  • Make the three dips (recipes below) to accompany the three different types of homemade potato chips to really enhance the pairing.  Set these up on a charcuterie board allowing everyone to create any sort of combination of chip and dip. 
  • If you’re pressed for time, simply make one of the dips (and you’ll see, I totally cheated on one dip) and place a variety of chips in a platter with one dip in the middle.  

Honestly, either way is perfect for the celebration or BBQ you’re attending so choose the easiest way for you.

How to Make Homemade Chips

We did a lot of research on the best way to make your own homemade potato chips.  The key was to make it easy so you could make it your new, perfect side dish for any occasion.

We thought about frying them in hot oil, but honestly, since I don’t a deep fryer, not to mention the cost of olive oil or vegetable oil for the amount of oil we’d need, we decided to try making air fryer potato chips.  

And I am so glad we did.  They were quickly disappearing once out of the oven as people could hardly wait for them to be transferred from the air fryer rack to the cooling rack.  

Here’s what you’ll need:

Supplies

  • Paper towels
  • Sharp knife or mandoline slicer
  • Wire rack
  • Large bowl
  • Tongs
  • Air fryer (or oven with that feature)

Ingredients

  • 5 lb bag of Idaho® Russet Potatoes – be sure it has the Grown in Idaho seal
  • Olive oil (Either from the bottle or spray can.  We liked the spray better.)
  • Sea salt
  • BBQ spice
  • Everything but the Bagel Seasoning

We experimented with air fryer potato chips many different ways. From different methods to a variety of seasonings, to varying the air fryer temperatures and baking time. here’s our favorite recipe.

  • Wash the potatoes under cold water and dry them well.
  • Using crinkle cutter knife (we got ours on Amazon), cut the potatoes into thin slices.  We did try thick slices to see if we liked them better and it was more of a potato skin than a potato chip.
  • Spread the sliced potatoes out onto paper towels in a single layer.  Dry them well. 
  • Decide how many different seasonings you want to use and divide your potato slices equally.  Take that amount of potato slices place them into a large bowl.  
  • Coat each of the potato slices in olive oil.  You do not need very much oil, in fact, we used the olive oil spray to control the amount better.  
  • Add the seasoning of your choice.  Be very generous.  
  • Mix well to be sure all of the potatoes are coated. 
  • Spread evenly into a single layer on the air fryer pan.  (Thankfully my sister has an air fryer feature on her oven so we were able to use the air fryer pan which is about the size of a baking sheet.
  • If you’re using the olive oil spray, do another quick spray before placing them into the oven.
  • Cook at 375 F for 20 minutes.  At the 20 minute mark, flip them over and put them back in for 5-7 more minutes.  
  • Place on a wire wrack to cool completely at room temperature
  • Repeat for remaining potatoes using the other spices you chose.
  • Once cooled completely, store your chips in an airtight container.

Alternate Prep Method

We did try two different methods for steps 4-8.  And this truly is a matter of preference, it didn’t change the outcome at all.  

  1. Place the potatoes directly onto the air fryer rack in a single layer.
  2. Lightly spray with olive oil.
  3. Generously sprinkle each potato with the seasoning.
  4. Lightly spray once more before putting into the oven/air fryer.

After 25-27 minutes, your homemade potato chips should be a nice golden brown and some will be darker and crispier than others.  If you like really crispy chips, you will want to monitor your air fryer and maybe leave them in for a few more minutes.  

Because we used the crinkle cutter knife, our potato slices were not sliced perfectly even, but we found that it was actually better.  Some people enjoyed really crispy potato chips and others thought the best part when it was still soft and potato-y in the middle and crispy on the edges.  So we really had the best of both worlds.  

Other Seasoning Options

We tested a lot of seasonings and had a lot of fun with it.  We decided on the ones in the above recipe for our own chips for this pairing because we knew it would pair well with bubbly and these were some of the favorites.

  • Parmesan cheese
  • Old bay seasoning
  • Popcorn seasonings (we were split 50/50 on this during our trial runs so we didn’t include them in these recipes, but it’s worth trying.)
  • Sea salt or Kosher salt and black pepper
  • Chili powder

TIPS:

  • Not all potatoes are grown equally.  And for the very best potatoes, look for the Idaho® Potatoes-Grown in Idaho logo on the bag. If you’re curious where to find them by you, check out the website.
  • If your leftover chips need a bit of crisping up (or if you didn’t let the chips cool completely), place them in a single layer on a sheet pan and put them under the broiler for a few minutes. Just be sure to watch it, those broilers go from crisping up to burnt in seconds.

Your New Favorite Dip

These homemade chips are so great on their own, but we were making this as a side dish for a BBQ, so we wanted to make this really fun.  I knew I was going to use my big charcuteries board to serve these, so I figured a great way to allow people to try and experiment with the pairings was to create 3 different dips.

Trust me, one of these is going to become your new favorite dip for any and all potato chip pairings moving forward.

Everything But the Bagel Dip

  • 1/2 cup Sour cream
  • 3 oz. Whipped cream cheese
  • 1 tsp. Everything But the Bagel Seasoning 
  • 1/4 tsp Garlic powder 
  • 1/4 tsp. Onion powder
  1. Mix everything together in a bowl.
  2. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours (the longer the better).
  3. Optional:  Sprinkle seasoning on top before serving.

Loaded Potato Dip

  • 1/2 cup Sour cream
  • 6 Slices of bacon, chopped (bacon bits would work too)
  • 1/4 Shredded cheese (we used cheddar) + handful to sprinkle on top
  • Optional:  Green onion
  1. Mix everything in a bowl.  Save a tablespoon or so of bacon to sprinkle on top)
  2. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours (the longer the better).
  3. Before serving, top with bacon, shredded cheese and green onion.  

We’re not big green onion fans, so we just sprinkled it on top and didn’t include them in the dip.

Creme Fraiche with Dill

Yes, I cheated on this one.  I bought creme fraiche and sprinkled with some fresh dill from the garden.

By the way, the favorite combo was the Everything But the Bagel Chip with the Everything But the Bagel dip.  

And yes, these chips and dips were great on their own, but paired with sparkling wine, they were even better.  I was so excited that we were able to pair these homemade Idaho Potato chips with an Idaho Sparkling Wine.

3100 Cellars Sparkling Wine

Believe it or not, Idaho is an up-and-coming wine region.  But sadly, there are only a handful of wineries making sparkling wine.  

And after chatting with Hailey at 3100 Cellars, it’s clear they are the sparkling wine pioneers of the region forging the way.

We tasted their 

  • 2019 Whitewater-Sparkling Chardonnay
  • 2022 Initial Descent -Sparkling Malbec
  • 2021 Pool & Drop-Sparkling Gewurztraminer
  • 2022 Double Captain White in a can
  • 2022 Double Captain Rosé in a can

These sparkling wines were great on their own, but of course, sparkling wine makes any salty, fatty delicious snack even better.  So we tasted our own potato chips and dips in every combination possible, with the sparkling wines.  

And our favorite pairings were with the Whitewater, Initial Descent and Pool & Drop.  The Whitewater was delicious with all of the combinations.  We really liked Initial Descent with BBQ chips.  And Pool & Drop went well with the creme fraiche and any of the chips.  If I was going to serve just one bottle with these homemade chips and dips, it would be the Whitewater.  

All of their sparkling wine is made in the traditional method which means that the second fermentation (which is where the bubbly magic happens) takes place in the bottle.  These bottles will be aged on lees for however long the winemaker decides and then will be disgorged and ready for you to enjoy.  

I started with the Whitewater mainly because I love chardonnay.  And a blanc de blanc (100% chardonnay) paired with potato chips is perfection in my book. This bottle sits on lees for 42 months which allows for more pronounced flavor development. With 4g/l dosage, this bottle of bubbly, this is a extra brut (dry) and is easy to drink and, of course pair with food.  

Next, I tried the sparkling malbec because I have never had one before and I was so intrigued. This malbec rosé was delightful.  Great with this pairing, but perfect on its own for these warm summer nights.  With 10g/l dosage, this brut rosé is just so good.  It’s aged on lees for 13 months.  

I finished the bottles with the sparkling gewurztraminer.  With 8 g/l dosage, this bottle of brut is perfect for the gewurztraminer lover.  It’s aged for 2 years on lees.  

Next we moved to the cans.  Now, this is not something they typically have, but when your equipment fails, you figure out how to make the best of it.  They had all this wine from the 2022 vintage and just needed the help of some friends who own a brewery to get it into cans so they didn’t lose the everything.  These cans are so easy to take to a BBQ and we enjoyed the Double Captain White the best with these chips and dips.

And here’s what’s so fun, there’s no right or wrong way to do this.  I poured a glass of sparkling chardonnay to start and tried it with all the chips by themselves, then with the chips and dips in all the combinations.  Then I repeated with all the other sparkling wines.  But that’s definitely not the only way to explore this pairing, it’s just one way.  And in the end, we all had different favorite combinations.

What do you think?  Will you be bringing this as your side dish to your next outdoor BBQ?  

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