Potato Chip Cookies

These cookies are a vintage church-cookbook miracle. Six ingredients (one of which is the leftover bag of potato chips you almost threw out), and they bake into a buttery, crumbly cookie with little salty bursts and crispy edges that taste like nothing else.

The dough is essentially a simple shortbread: butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour. No leavening agent, which is why these stay flat, crisp, and snap rather than rise into puffy rounds. Crushed regular potato chips folded in at the end provide all the structural drama: salt, fat, and that distinctive fried-potato crunch.

The ratio matters. A full cup of crushed chips per cup-and-a-half of flour means almost half the cookie is chip, not dough. Use the cheap classic salted chips, kettle-cooked or flavored chips throw off the texture and overpower the buttery base.

A brief 10 minute bake at 350°F (175°C) is all they need. Pull when the edges turn pale gold and the centers still look slightly underbaked, the cookies firm up dramatically as they cool.

Pro Tips

• Crush the chips coarsely, leaving some pieces nearly whole. Pulverized chips disappear into the dough and you lose the textural surprise.
• Use room-temperature butter for the cream-and-sugar step. Cold butter leaves streaks, melted butter makes the cookies greasy.
• Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls and leave 2 inches between, the cookies spread modestly during the bake.
• Cool on the sheet for the full minute before transferring, hot cookies are fragile and tear easily off the pan.

Variations

• Add a half cup of chopped pecans for a sweet-salty-nutty triple play.
• Drizzle the cooled cookies with melted chocolate for a salted chocolate finish.
• Swap regular chips for sour cream and onion or salt and vinegar chips for a more aggressive savory edge (works better than you would think).