What's Actually in the Snack Aisle?
Lentil chips, vegetable crisps, popped snacks, tempeh crisps - the savoury snack aisle has become quite the crowded place.
They might look similar on the shelf, but what's actually in them, and how they're made, can be surprisingly different.
So let's look beyond the packaging and see what's really going on, including where our own baked tempeh snacks fit in.
Vegetable Crisps
What they are: Usually thin slices of root vegetables, fried or baked.
The traditional kind are straightforward: beetroot, parsnips, carrots or other vegetables, sliced and cooked until crisp. You can usually recognise the original vegetable by its shape and texture.
Then there are shaped vegetable snacks, such as veggie straws. These are often made using potato starch, potato flour and smaller amounts of vegetable powders.
Both can be sold as vegetable-based snacks, despite being made quite differently.
Neither approach is inherently better. But if you're particularly interested in the vegetables themselves, checking the ingredient list is a good place to start.
Lentil and Chickpea Chips
What they are: Usually made from pulse flour, sometimes combined with starches, then shaped and cooked.
Rather than slicing whole lentils or chickpeas (which would be quite the challenge), manufacturers typically mill them into flour and combine them with other ingredients to create a dough.
Starches, such as potato or tapioca starch, can help achieve a particular structure and texture. For example, Eat Real Lentil Chips contain lentil flour alongside potato starch and maize flour.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's simply how many formulated snacks are made.
The important distinction is that a snack made with lentils isn't necessarily made entirely from lentils. The proportion of each ingredient varies between products.
Popped and Puffed Snacks
What they are: Often made from grains, pulses or flour blends expanded using heat and pressure.
Unlike conventional crisps, these snacks get much of their airy structure from expansion during processing.
That's why some feel exceptionally light and have a delicate texture. The relationship between processing conditions and snack structure is explored in this 2024 review of extrusion technology.
Whether they're baked, fried or otherwise finished depends on the product, so it's worth checking the packaging rather than assuming all popped snacks are prepared in the same way.
Traditional Tempeh Crisps
What they are: Thinly sliced tempeh, often coated in seasoned flour and deep-fried.
Tempeh has been part of Indonesian food culture for centuries, and traditional keripik tempe is one of the many ways it's enjoyed.
If tempeh is new to you, we've written a simple guide to what tempeh is and how it's made.
Recipes vary, but a common preparation involves slicing fermented soya bean cakes thinly, coating them in a mixture containing rice flour or other starches, and frying them until crisp. This method is also documented in research on traditional tempeh crisp production.
The result can be wonderfully crunchy, with flavours influenced by the tempeh, seasoning and frying process.
We're big fans of fried tempeh ourselves. One of our founders grew up eating it both as a snack and alongside meals.
But we've always felt that tempeh's distinctive flavour deserves more attention, something that deep-frying and heavy seasoning can sometimes mask.
Which brings us to what we're doing.
So, Where Does TEMPTÉ Fit In?
We're taking a different approach.
TEMPTÉ isn't a traditional sliced tempeh crisp. We're developing a baked snack using real tempeh as the main ingredient, alongside other ingredients like water and cornflour.
Why cornflour? Because ingredients like starch can play an important role in creating the structure and texture we're looking for.
Our goal isn't to eliminate every ingredient except tempeh. It's to create a snack that tastes unmistakably of tempeh.
Baking gives us a different way to achieve that without deep-frying. We want the ingredient's naturally nutty, savoury flavour to come through, rather than be overwhelmed by the cooking process or heavy seasoning.
We've written more about the thinking behind our approach in Why We Make Snacks From Tempeh.
It's something you can enjoy straight from the pack, whether on its own or with a dip or cheese (which we're particularly fond of). We've also explored what to dip tempeh snacks in and how they might fit into a cheese board.
It's not about replacing traditional fried tempeh. We simply wanted to explore another way to enjoy an ingredient we love.
The Short Version
| Snack | What's typically in it | How it's made |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetable crisps | Sliced root vegetables | Usually fried or baked |
| Veggie straws | Often potato-based starches and vegetable powders | Formed and cooked |
| Lentil / chickpea chips | Pulse flour, sometimes with added starches | Shaped, baked, fried or extruded |
| Popped snacks | Grain or pulse-based mixtures | Expanded using heat and pressure |
| Traditional tempeh crisps | Sliced tempeh, often with a seasoned flour coating | Usually deep-fried |
| TEMPTÉ | Tempeh, other ingredients | Formulated and baked |
These are general descriptions. Ingredients and production methods vary between brands.
How to Read the Snack Aisle
A good place to start is the ingredients list.
In the UK, ingredients are generally listed in descending order by weight, subject to certain labelling rules. That can help you understand what makes up a product beyond the ingredient highlighted on the front of the packet.
But don't judge a snack by one ingredient alone.
Flours, starches and oils all serve different purposes in food production. Their presence doesn't automatically make a product better or worse.
It's also worth considering how a snack is made, its nutritional information and, of course, whether you actually enjoy eating it.
Because a snack shouldn't need an impressive ingredient list to excuse a disappointing taste.
And that's ultimately what we're working towards with TEMPTÉ: a baked snack that gives tempeh's distinctive flavour the attention we think it deserves.
Keep reading
- Tempeh Crisps: What They Are and How They Taste
- Savoury Snacks With Protein That Aren't Meat
- Why We Make Snacks From Tempeh
- Why Some Snacks Leave You Hungry
- What to Dip Tempeh Crisps In
- Are Tempeh Crisps Healthy?
Curious what we’re doing with tempeh? Meet TEMPTÉ →
A note on sources
The comparisons in this article draw on published research, food manufacturing information and publicly available ingredient lists. Products and recipes vary, so always check the packaging for the latest information.
Understanding snack ingredients
- UK Government — Food Labelling: Ingredients List. Explains ingredient ordering and labelling requirements.
- Tyrrells Mixed Root Vegetable Crisps, Kiddylicious Veggie Straws, and Eat Real Lentil Chips. Examples illustrating differences between sliced vegetables and snacks formulated using flours and starches.
How snacks are made
- Ali et al. (2024) — Effects of Extrusion Process Conditions on Nutritional, Physical and Sensory Properties of Extruded Snacks. A review of how ingredients and processing conditions influence expanded snack structures.
Tempeh and Indonesian food culture
- Tempe: A Traditional Fermented Food of Indonesia and Its Health Benefits (2021). Background on tempeh's origins, heritage and traditional preparations.
- Yuniarti et al. (2015) — HACCP in Tempeh Crisp Production. Documents the traditional process of slicing, flour-coating and frying tempeh crisps.
A note about TEMPTÉ
Descriptions of TEMPTÉ reflect our current product development and formulation, which may change before commercial launch. Our preferences around flavour and preparation are based on our own experiences, rather than comparative scientific testing.
