Combos – Ranch Dip

Combos are one of those things I don’t think about or crave much but if you present them to me I will consume them with extreme prejudice. While flavour is important, I find with Combos it is less so because the texture is a huge part of the enjoyment. I put them in the same category as sandwich crackers like Ritz cheese or peanut butter. Instead of buttery crackers you replace them with salty, hard pretzel cylinders. It’s a cylinder.

The thing with combos is that they are largely heavy on the pretzel rather than the filling, so at a bare minimum you have to enjoy that texture to find enjoyment in this snack. Also, what’s the difference between ranch and a ranch dip? Are they not fundamentally the same thing except maybe texture is slightly different, if at all? Either way I find my relationship with ranch to be similar to mayo – decent in small quantities but the more you add the grosser it feels and the worse it makes things. Hopefully not an issue here…

The texture is about what you would expect of a standard, normal salt and dough pretzel. It’s hard on the outside, but once you get past that crunchy outer layer it’s very airy and dry. Emphasis on dry because despite having a cheese like filling on the inside, it’s still quite dry. The giant salt crystals on the outside don’t help with the dryness, but they do add to the crunchiness. The center is the same texture that you would get from any other shelf stable cheese snack. Think Ritz cheese crackers.

The flavour is mostly from the filling. The pretzel itself is basically the same as those same boring pretzel pieces you get in sticks or knots – it’s just kind of bland and dough like. The salt adds a little bit of a zip to it, but again, the flavour is from the filling. The ranch dip as it is referred to, is definitely a strong smell, but flavour is somewhat muted in comparison. It has the classic notes of ranch like onion and garlic, but it’s mostly heavy on the dairy side of things, so the tang from the buttermilk.

Combos are one of those things that are oddly addictive, and this is no exception. The flavour is admittedly a bit muted but it still does a decent job delivering that ranch kick that people enjoy. This seems like an easy repurchase for anyone who likes the texture of pretzels with an added novelty of a filling.