Arico Cassava Chips

A Healthier Alternative To Potato Chips

CAPSULE REVIEW: Love chips, but want less fat and more fiber...and maybe something a little more “gourmet” than the familiar old fried potato slice? All-natural Arico Cassava Chips, in Original plus Barbecue Bliss, Ginger On Fire and Sea Salt Mist, belong on your plate. We love the elegant flavor profiles of these chips, which are sophisticated enough to be served with dinner. The healthier profile is a bonus.

Overview
Cassava Chip Flavors

Serving Suggestions
Buy Online

Although it is rarely seen in North America outside of Latin American markets and restaurants, cassava—also spelled casava, and also known as manioc and yuca—is a staple of nearly 500 million people worldwide. The root of a woody shrub native to the Amazon basin, cassava is the third largest source of carbohydrate food in the world.* It is a popular replacement for potatoes in the countries where it is grown, a resilient root and grows well in arid or drought-ridden soils.

*Claude Fauquet and Denis Fargette, (1990) “African Cassava Mosaic Virus: Etiology, Epidemiology, and Control,” Plant Disease, Vol. 74(6): 404-11.

Thousands of years ago, the subtropical plant was carried from the Amazon basin throughout Latin America and, through long boat journeys, to Africa and Asia. (Arico purchases its cassava roots from farmers on the island of Java, in the South Pacific.) Today, travelers can enjoy cassava in purées (liked mashed potatoes), fried, made into dumplings, added to soups and stews, in bread, pies and puddings, Tapioca is made from cassava root flour.

Now, you can take a bite of this ancient food—a crunchy bite. Arico Natural Foods has brought gluten-free Cassava Chips to America. In four flavors, with 30% to 40% less fat (depending on the flavor) and twice as much dietary fiber as potato chips, these all-natural chips are a healthier alternative,** as well as an exotic new addition to the snack and garnish repertoire. They add a fresh, new taste to crunchy foods. The thin, yellowy disks with their brown edges add a graceful design to the plate as well.

Cassava shrubs growing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cassava is a root plant that grows underground like the potato, which also originated in South America, in Peru. Photo by Bob Walker, courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

**They have 150 calories per ounce.

READ MORE REVIEWS OF OUR FAVORITE
SALTY SNACKS

Flavors

The thinly-sliced chips are currently available in four flavors. All except Sea Salt Mist have a bit of evaporated cane juice in the seasoning mix, and all are flavored with sea salt. The seasonings are bestowed with finesse, which is why these chips can take their place next to the most elegant lobster roll or martini.

Original Cassava Chips are a good basic chip, tinged with garlic powder. The sweetness of the evaporated cane juice emerges ever so slightly, as if it is the naturally sweetness of the cassava.
Barbeque Bliss Cassava Chips have garlic powder, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and other natural flavors and spices to provide a barbecue experience. (Barbeque is the best selling flavored potato chip, and these were a close tie with our favorite flavor, Ginger.)

Serve them with dip, soups, salads, sandwiches...or snack from the bag.

Ginger On Fire Cassava Chips have plenty of ginger sizzle, and a complex flavor that combines garlic and onion powders, leeks, and other spices and natural flavors. There’s a long ginger finish after the chip is gone. It enlivens the food it is paired with—anything from a steak sandwich to shrimp salad.
Sea Salt Mist Cassava Chips are the simplest: just sea salt, no evaporated cane juice. Yet, the salt is very light—the chips are not salty, but serene.

Serving Suggestions

While it’s easy to polish off the five-ounce bag with a craft beer, these chips can go anywhere.

Enjoy them with cocktails
Use them as ingredients and garnish (we used them to decorate mashed
potatoes)
Serve them with entrées—meat, poultry and seafood
And of course, With soups, salads, sandwiches and burgers

While cassava is a starchy vegetable, it’s good, nutritious starch, and much preferable, we think, to the many of the potato varieties that have been bred for potato chips (which often taste like “guilty starch”). Arico’s Cassava Chips have a permanent place on our shelf.

ARICO’S CASSAVA CHIPS

Barbeque Bliss, Ginger On Fire, Original, Sea Salt Mist

Dairy Free
Gluten Free

5-Ounce Bag
Suggested Retail Price
$3.49
12-Bag Case
Individual Flavors Or
Variety Pack
$41.88

Arico Cassava Chips
Set up a cassava chip tasting bar at your next barbecue‡.

Purchase 12-pack cases online† at AricoFoods.com.

The chips are also available at fine food stores nationwide, including Whole Foods Markets.

†Prices and product availability are verified at publication but are subject to change. Shipping is additional. These items are offered by a third party and THE NIBBLE has no relationship with them. This link to purchase is provided as a reader convenience.

‡Editorial note: Barbecue has a variety of spellings, and THE NIBBLE has chosen the “barbecue” variation. When a manufacture chooses a different spelling for its product’s name, as Arico has (“barbeque”), we retain our own spelling convention when not naming the product. Thus, “barbecue” is spelled two different ways in this article.

Recent Articles From Our NutriNibbles™ News Feed:

Subscribing notifies you whenever there are
new additions to the NutriNibbles™ section.

Subscribe to THE NIBBLE™ NutriNibbles™ by Email