We Made Cool Ranch Doritos At Home And Holy Shit They Tasted Real

Get that 100% garbage food taste even if you're garbage at making food.

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Yo, we're Chrissy and Kristin, and we love junk food —especially Cool Ranch Doritos, the Miss America of snacks.

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But it seems like the secret to dope-ass Cool Ranch Doritos is all the crazy additives and dyes that you obviously can't duplicate at home.

Frito-lay.com

WHO PUT DA BLUE DYE IN THERE?

So we thought we'd try to make our own Cool Ranch Doritos from scratch (using this recipe from Becky Hardin at The Cookie Rookie) to see if we — terrible cooks — could make our favorite garbage food at home while keeping that A+ processed taste.

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Here's what we used. (A lot of this shit is probably in your pantry/your parents' pantry, anyway.)

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You'll also need:

* A Dutch oven, a deep fryer, OR a big stockpot — whatever is handy!

* Wooden spoon

* Cutting board

* Knife

* Tongs

* Paper towels

* A sense of adventure

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First, we dumped a container of canola oil into the Dutch oven and heated it. We were supposed to heat it to 350 degrees, but we didn't have a thermometer, so we googled a ~hot trick~ to figure out when it's ready for frying.

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Basically, you take a wooden spoon, stick it in the oil, and once bubbles start forming around the edge of the spoon, it means the oil is hot enough for fry time. Also, you'll need at least 2 inches of oil, which we found came out to about a container's worth.

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Next, we cut the tortillas into bb pizza slices. We realized at this point we were a third of the way through, and we were extremely proud of ourselves.

Macey J. Foronda/BuzzFeed

Macey J. Foronda/BuzzFeed

Don't let Kristin's face fool you.

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Then, we took all the powdery things (the ranch packets, ground onion, ground garlic, smoked paprika, etc.) and mixed those together in a bowl.

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DUST BOWL.

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We carefully dropped the bb tortillas into the hot oil in small batches. We flipped them until they were crispy, which took about 3 minutes.

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As people who have never fried anything before, this was definitely the scariest part. (WHAT IF THE HOT OIL TOUCHES US?!) Turns out it was actually totally fine, dudes. It was only 2 inches of oil, so while it was rumblin' hard, it never even got close to our skin.

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When they were firm and ready (ew), we placed them on a paper towel and IMMEDIATELY sprinkled the powder mixture on them.

Macey J. Foronda/BuzzFeed

Macey J. Foronda/BuzzFeed

Seriously, don't wait to season them. We found that when we waited, the powder really didn't stick to the chips, so you want to get on that right away. Season the day.

The crazy thing we immediately noticed was that they were less yellow than the real thing, but tasted EXACTLY like Cool Ranch Doritos. So where's all that yellow coming from? It was a mind fuck.

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Food dye probably, but the point is that you don't need the neon color to get the same bold taste. You just THINK you do!

AND THAT'S IT. WE DID IT. A COUPLE OF BAD COOKS SUCCESSFULLY RECREATED ONE FIFTH OF OUR MIDDLE SCHOOL LUNCHES!

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Seriously, we have both burned a lot of things in our time, and we were amazed that this did not turn out to be one of them! Also, it took us less than 30 minutes to make the snack of our dreams minus the shitload of dyes, AND we could eat them while they were still warm. So, sure, you could run to the grocery store to grab a bag, or you could make 'em at home in the same amount of time and look like a real-ass adult to your friends.

And here’s the whole recipe for reference — plus a how-to that you can pin for later:

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