Are Ruffles Vegan? List of Vegan Flavors

Ruffles is a brand of crinkle-cut potato chips put out by Frito-Lay. The brand of snack food has been around for several decades now.^1,2 Because they’ve been around for so long, a lot of vegans grew up eating the snack and want to know if they can continue to do so after switching to a 100% plant-based diet.

Are they vegan? The original Ruffles are vegan. They simply contain potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt.³ As with most product lines, there are several flavors on offer by the brand and some varieties are vegan while others contain animal-derive ingredients.

In the case of Ruffles, most are non-vegan.

What we’ll do here is go over a list of both vegan and non-vegan flavors. Warning: overall, Ruffles are among the least vegan-friendly chip brands on the market. Almost every flavor contains milk in one form or another. You’ll notice, the brand really loves cheese.

So, brace yourself, because the list of vegan-friendly flavors is about 1/3 the length of non-vegan flavors.

Vegan Ruffles Flavors

Ruffles Original Potato Chips

These were just mentioned, but for the sake of completeness we’ll list them here. The original contains just three basic ingredients: potatoes, vegetable oils (corn, sunflower, and/or canola), and salt.³

All Dressed (My Favorite)

I was very surprised to find out these were vegan. According to Wikipedia, all-dressed, or assaisonnées in French, is a popular Canadian potato chip flavor that combines barbecue, ketchup, salt and vinegar, and the common non-vegan flavor profile: sour cream and onion.^4,5

Apparently, Ruffles decided to skip out on the sour cream—which is good news for vegans.

Per the food label, Ruffles All Dressed potato chips contain potatoes, vegetable oils (sunflower, corn an/or canola), and all dressed seasoning which includes:⁶

Corn Maltodextrin
Sugar
Salt
Sodium Diacetate
Dextrose
Torula Yeast
Spices
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)
Sodium Acetate
Garlic and Onion Powders
Sunflower Oil
Paprika Extracts
Malic Acid
Natural Flavors)

Not a trace of cheese in sight. They seem to achieve the cheesy flavor from the torula yeast and MSG. Yeast has long been a favorite for use as a vegan cheese alternative.

Ruffles Tapatio Limon Potato Chips

These contain potatoes, vegetable oils (canola, sunflower, and/or corn), and a Tapatio “limon” seasoning which includes:⁷

Maltodextrin (from Corn)
Sodium Diacetate
Spices, Salt
Natural Flavors (w/Natural Lime Flavor)
Modified Corn Starch
Monosodium Glutamate
Garlic Powder
Artificial Color (Including Red 40 Lake and Yellow 6 Lake)

Red 40 Lake and Yellow 6 Lake are both vegan-friendly food colorants, so no problems there.

That’s it for the vegan flavors. A short list, I know. You may be wondering where the BBQ is. If you remember from above, BBQ is actually part of the all dressed flavor profile, so I suppose that’s the only BBQ flavor available for now.

Non-Vegan Ruffles Flavors

Mozzarella N’ Marinara

These contain the usual ingredients (potatoes and oil) plus:⁸

Maltodextrin (from Corn)
Salt
Whey
Tomato, Garlic, and Onion Powders
Buttermilk
Sugar
Natural Flavors
Spices (Including Parsley)
Yeast Extract
Mozzarella Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Butter (Cream, Annatto)
Paprika
Disodium Inosinate, and Disodium Guanylate

Whey protein pops up in pretty much every non-vegan flavor. It’s the second most abundant protein in milk. It has a lot of useful properties, so it is extracted out of dairy products by the food industry to be used in various food products.

Flamin’ Hot

These contain the usual ingredients plus a “Flamin’ Hot Seasoning” which includes:⁹

Corn Maltodextrin, Salt, Sugar, and MSG
Yeast Extract
Citric Acid
Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Artificial Color (Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6)
Onion and Garlic Powders
Whey
Corn Syrup Solids
Buttermilk
Romano Cheese (Part-Skim Cow’s Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Whey Protein Concentrate
Natural Flavors
Sodium Caseinate, and Sodium Diacetate

Jalapeño Ranch

Oddly, jalapeno is usually a red flag in processed food products like chips, even when it’s not paired with ranch. For whatever reason, food manufacturers like to give jalapeno flavored foods a creamy texture and mouthfeel, so they usually throw milk derivatives into the mix.

These include a Jalapeño Ranch Seasoning which contains:¹⁰

Buttermilk
Salt, Maltodextrin, Dextrose, and Monosodium Glutamate
Spices and Tomato, Onion and Garlic Powders
Whey Powder
Skim Milk
Sour Cream (Cream, Skim Milk, Cultures)
Sunflower Oil
Dried Red Bell Pepper
Natural Flavors, Malic Acid, and Sugar

Cheddar & Sour Cream

This flavor is about as non-vegan as you can get.

The Cheddar & Sour Cream Seasoning contains about a dozen animal products.

Benign ingredients include:¹¹

Corn Maltodextrin, Salt
Onion Powder
Corn Oil
Monosodium Glutamate
Lactic Acid
Garlic Powder
Artificial Color (Including Yellow 6, Yellow 5)
Sunflower Oil
Yeast Extract
Citric Acid
Natural and Artificial Flavors
Canola Oil

Non-vegan ingredients include:¹¹

Whey Protein
Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Buttermilk
Sour Cream (Cultured Cream, Skim Milk)
Lactose
Butter (Cream, Salt)
Sodium Caseinate
Skim Milk
Blue Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Whey Protein Isolate
Milk Protein Concentrate

Sour Cream & Onion

This is a classic flavor profile and was always my favorite chip flavor growing up. Fortunately, there are several vegan-friendly “sour cream” and onion snacks on the market. I use quotes because they don’t use actual dairy products, but use plant-based seasoning blends instead.

Anyway, Ruffle’s SCO chips are obviously off-limits for vegans.

The Sour Cream and Onion Seasoning blend contains:¹²

Whey Protein
Natural Flavors
Onion Powder, Salt, Monosodium Glutamate
Buttermilk
Sour Cream (Cream, Skim Milk, Cultures)
Skim Milk
Maltodextrin (from Potato)
Canola Oil
Parsley
Yeast Extract
Gum Acacia

Queso Cheese

Finally, we have Queso Cheese which seems kind of redundant. Maybe it’s double cheese—which would make it doubly off-limits for vegans.

The Queso Seasoning contains:¹³

Salt, Maltodextrin (Corn), Monosodium Glutamate
Onion and Garlic Powders, Paprika Extracts
Whey and Whey Protein Concentrate
Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, Spices (Including Chili Pepper), Yeast Extract
Sunflower Oil, Lactic Acid
Blue Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)
Gum Arabic
Buttermilk
Corn Syrup Solids
Sour Cream (Cultured Cream, Skim Milk)
Butter (Cream, Salt)
Skim Milk
Annatto Extract

That’s it for the vegan status of Ruffles. Thanks for reading.

You may also want to check out the following related articles:

References

Frito-lay, Inc. V. Bachman Co., 704 F. Supp. 432 (S.D.N.Y. 1989). https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/704/432/1440978/
Frito-lay Company. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/frito-lay-company-history/
Ruffles® Original Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-original-potato-chips
All Dressed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-dressed
Our Beloved Ruffles All Dressed Chips Are Going South. Arti Patel – https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/23/ruffles-all-dressed-us_n_8183592.html
Ruffles® All Dressed Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-all-dressed-flavored-potato-chips
Ruffles Tapatio Limon Potato Chips, 9 Oz. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ruffles-Tapatio-Limon-Potato-Chips-9-oz/19766144
Ruffles® Mozzarella N’ Marinara Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-mozzarella-n-marinara-flavored-potato-chips
Ruffles® Flamin’ Hot® Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-flamin-hot-flavored-potato-chips
Ruffles® Jalapeño Ranch Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-jalape-o-ranch-flavored-potato-chips
Ruffles® Cheddar & Sour Cream Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-cheddar-sour-cream-flavored-potato-chips
Ruffles® Sour Cream & Onion Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-sour-cream-onion-flavored-potato-chips
Ruffles® Queso Cheese Flavored Potato Chips: Ruffles. https://www.ruffles.com/products/ruffles-queso-cheese-flavored-potato-chips