Important question

Zigzag?? Bitch you mean crinkle cut?!?!

It’s not worth respecting something that clearly belongs on the bottom of the list.
- Sweet potato is at the bottom. If you disagree with me, you're an idiot.
And those are JoJos....

Posting such a controversial question and putting in onion rings on this list is bordering on rage bait

Edit: I can't type

I'm really sorry I should have put a trigger warning
"Sides you dip in ketchup" covers everything in the image!
- Sides that are fried
- Ketchup on onion rings? Right to jail, right away.

One is not like the others.

two are not like the others
- Sweet Potato is at least a potato.
- They're all fried tubers. I'll let it slide. The real travesty is no fried yuca on the list.

Whatever anyone’s opinion on this, ONION RINGS DO NOT BELONG HERE, they are NOT POTATOS

I've tried onion rings at at least 5 different resteraunts. All of them just tasted like heart failure. Don't know how they are popular.
- You must not have had them with barbeque sauce
Sweet potatoes aren't potatoes either.
They are orthogonal to the potato axis.
- WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?
Yes this screams of shitpost.
they're fried

Zigzag

Uh, it's crinkle cut and someone will die on my hill.

Our hill.
- And my axe

... are the wedges the only non fried food in this picture?

How about boiling them tatoes?

Or simply pan fry them with some butter?

Anyways; 1. Wedges, 2. Waffles, 3. Shoestring with surprise sweet potatoes > The rest.

Wedges are fried often times. At our nation-wide supermarket for example, at the ready-made counter, wedges are definitely fried. Same with the mom and pop chicken shop down the street.
If we're talking about expanding to other potatoe-preparations, we might as well include a simple baked potatoe.
And, as a Bavarian, I cannot omit the glorious Knödel (in all it's potato-based variations).
- Preparation is important.
  Air fryer makes sweet potato move up the list, regular oven makes tots go up. Traditional deep fried makes them go down and brings the potato items up.
I think the OP was originally about fried preparation of potatoes. Wedges at least in North America are usually fried, I think the only non-fried ones I've seen are in the UK.
Also if we're talking about the best preparation of potatoes in general, it's mashed and there's no argument there.

This

With Belgian mayonaise!

And I'm Dutch so I'm not even biased.

Yes. Vlaamse frieten zijn superieur.
- Why Vlaamse? Good fries also in Brussels and Wallonia
Is that the same thing sold as "frite sauce"? That stuff is the food of the gods
- I'm not an expert but I think frite sauce is basically mayonnaise with cheaper ingredients. To call something mayonnaise (at least in the Netherlands) it must contain 70% oil and 5% egg (yolk).
🫡

5, [tied: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7], 6, 8

Sweet potato fries are fucking amazing when they're done right. Usually they're overly mushy which I think is why they get so much hate, but they're top tier when the cook knows what they're doing.

Sweet Potato fries turn out way better than regular potato in an air fryer if you're buying frozen ones to make at home.
I bought a spice grinder and made a spice mix for my sweet potato fries. Its a mix of salt, old bay, montreal steak seasoning and dried chilli flakes and its awesome.
- Hard agree. The only issue is frozen sweet potato fries are way more expensive than regular. I try to make my own at home but can’t get the same crispness in the air fryer.

2, 3, 4, 6, 1, 7, 5.

Onion rings are either at the top or bottom of the list depending on the batch.

Tater tot: A good tater tot is like butter. Pure salt and crunch then melt in your mouth deliciousness.
Onion Rings: Good onion rings is technically better than tater tots, but the spectrum of bad to good onion rings is very wide.
Curly Fries: Curly Fries are hard to fuck up. I don't even think I've had a variation of curly fries. They're all the same to me, but they're so good.
Wedges: Wedges have a smaller spectrum than onion rings, but the ceiling is lower and they're hard to rank better than the ones ahead of them.
Shoestring: McDonalds
ZigZag: These can range from heavenly to straight fucking trash. Unfortunately they're too easy to turn into straight fucking trash. By that I mean you have to put more work into them to make them good as opposed to just salt and oven/fried. Might as well just try to fry some snow at that point.
Sweet Potato: I've had good sweet potato fries but I rarely get good sweet potato fries.
Waffle: I don't get these. They're ass. The only place that makes them kinda tolerable is Chik-Fila, but even then they're still ass to me. Can't even make them good at home without drowning them in salt and ketchup. I can slice up a potato and chuck them in the oven and get better results most of the time.

Edit for formatting. Apparently piefed, doesn't honor your numbering and turns it into 1, 2, 3, etc even if you go 8, 12, 3.

I nearly dismissed your review until you qualified your assessment of onion rings. I have transposed the order on those first two myself
- They're close. I might give another answer depending on the day. The rest of the order I stand by.

Okay, two of them aren’t even the same vegetable.

They're all tied for number 1, except sweet potato, which skips all the empty spots below and goes straight to number 8. Sweet potato fries suck.

I wonder if they could be made better by doing that parboil-freeze-deepfry trick that makes mcdonalds fries so good

Cheese curds

Cheese curds and gravy
- Ah, the Canadian.

3 (tots)
2 (curly)
6 (~~zigzag~~ crinkle cut)
4 (waffle)
7 (~~wedges~~ Jo-Jo’s)
5 (sweet potato)
8 (onion rings) - tied with sweet potatoes; they’re both lost and in the wrong part of town
1 (shoestring) - potato chip sticks with more steps

Missing: coniques.

Ugh. People who call wedges “Jo-Jo’s” creep me out. It’s just so weird. Agreed about Crinkle fries though.
- Is it the name or the people that creeps you out?

No. I refuse to rank my children as well.

My only strong opinion on the whole chart is that crinkle cut fries are the worst thing shown and thus take last place no matter what

Crinkle are dogshit tier but I'll take them over sweet potato anything.

Jack in the Box curlies from 20 years ago before they switched to a different frying oil. I was just arriving in the states and that stuff was the best ever.

Hardee's curly fries are the best. By extension I guess that means Carl's Jr. too, but I wouldn't know.
Did they do what McDonald's did and switch from beef tallow to vegetable oil?
I miss the old McDonald's fries but I like that their less terrible for you, but yet they're still not vegetarian/vegan.

Eh I'm English, all beige food is top tier!

-Curly

-Onion Ring (isn't really tater but I love them)

-Waffle

-Shoestring

-Sweet potato

-Zigzag (crinkle cut)

-Wedges

-Tots

Honestly though if im only stuck with the last three I won't even eat them-

Chip shop chips > roast potato > steak fries > everything on this list

I think onion rings and tots need to be removed from the list as neither are potato based. Substitute latkes and hash browns in their places.

Bro, what are your tots made out of?
- Industrial waste or cardboard, would be my guess (it was a joke, tots are every bit as good as waffle fry’s).
What exactly are your tots made of, if not 'tater?
Tots are literally cylindrical hash browns.
Where does it say that being potato based is part of the criteria?
Oh shit latkes are like bringing a gun to a knife fight. None of the other options even come close.

Everything else on the list
Onion rings

What can I say, I love tubers

Doesn't matter which, if its done incorrectly its complete garbage.

Done right, each one, extremely delicious... except maybe sweet potato

Where the hell are the Cajun fries?

8, 5, 4, 2, 1, 7, 3, 6

Adding Cajun seasoning to 4, 2, 1, or 7 would raise it above the other 3 and make me unsure about whether to raise it above 5.

They are definitely by shape (mostly, sweet potato is the odd one out), not seasoning. You can add Cajun seasoning to any of those and they'd still be what shape they are. Just like I prefer curly fries, but I don't like the ones from Arby's because of their seasoning.
- mostly, sweet potato is the odd one out
  And the onion rings.

5, 1, 8, 7, 3, 6, 2, 4

Sweet spud ftw!

Why not #9?

They are delicious
I assumed because the category was "things that aren't actually chips / potato fries" - by being real pieces of fried potato these are disqualified 😅

I'm not too fussy about my deep fried treats. They're all no. 1 in my book. Except sweet potato, they can fuck off. They taste fine, but why are they always soggy?

You haven't had good ones then, because a well cooked sweet tater fry that is crispy on the outside and soft in the middle is the best.
- I clearly haven't, but I'd like to.
- This is interesting. They are very firmly in the bottom of my list and have no chance of moving up, but curiously, I don't think I've ever had these soggy ones people are talking about. Actually the few I had were quite nicely crisped and I would wager must have been seeing of the best examples of their class. As a food on their own, not ranked alongside chips, they're probably a more solid "kind of okay", they just can't go beyond last place in any such list because they'll never beat actual chips. Crinkle cut almost managed to be terrible enough to be the first of it's kind beaten by sweet potato fries but then I had to imagine being presented with either and no other substitutes and even then I couldn't bring myself to pick the sweet potato despite them likely having an actually better crisp texture in that scenario than those awful crinkle cuts. Just not looking for sweet potato flavour at all if I'm having chips. I guess the trouble is, for me, making them in to chips is probably one of the best ways to make sweet potato tolerable but I just dislike them in the first place so it's hardly going to be warmly embraced.
So true actually

Yes. To all of them.

Waffle fries (always crispy and delicious)
Curly fries (same)
Tater tots (surprisingly good)
Wedges, if properly spiced
Good onion rings
Shoestring, if not limp
Bad onion rings
Bad wedges
Crinkle cut (zigzag) (usually unflavored and soggy from a bag, but can be better than soggy shoestrings)
Bad shoestrings
Sweet potato fries (always soggy and I don't like sweet potato very much)

5 - 8 - 4 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 7 - 6

I'm really not a big white potato fan but sweet potatoes and onions are delicious

This is exactly what I thought as going to answer. Fuckin LOVE sweet potatoes and onions

Tater tots are basically an entire potential meal of their own. Not a French fry, but I may actually prefer them as a possible main dish.
The best French fries. They are the perfect side.
If you want to fancy it up a bit. Suitable for formal occasions.
Taking the one-dimensional line of the French fry and extrapolating it out to two dimensions. Still a good ketchup conveyance, but starting to get into the issue I'm going to bring up with...

5, 6, 7. Not a good enough ratio of crispy outer fried surface to gooey potato inner. I prefer crisp, but when I bite one of these, I have a good chance of just getting a mouthful of scalding hot potato napalm, or what's worse, cold potato cement. Not ideal.

'8. Yeccch.

counterargument: 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

list is missing Fried Tofu

since we're apparently just including any random fuckin food you can fry

Also missing fried taro and fried cassava.

What the heck kind of list is this?

Where are the steak fries?

the wedges?
- Steak fries or "steak-cut" fries are much different than wedges. Maybe they're called something different outside the US:

5 8 7 2 4 1 6 3

Where are the cheese curds? Fucking profligates is deep fried cheese too good for ya?

1, 7, 6, 4, 8, 3, 2, 5

Name checks out.

My vote is on number 10: Röstis

Most of these are good, just for different things. I want waffle fries at the bar; I want shoestring fries at the burger place; I want wedges at the cafe on the corner.

Except the zigzags. I don't think I've ever had a good zigzag.

Wedges
Curly
Zigzag
Shoestring
Waffle
Tots
Sweet Potato (not a potato but closer than an onion)
Onion Rings (not a potato, would be 3 otherwise)

I'm gonna have to lock in Onion Rings as my final answer.

8, 2 4, 3, 1, 6, 7, 5

Assuming they onion rings are beer batter and the curly fries are from Arby's.

47123685

2: Top tier. I would suck a curly fry-wrapped dick as a side dish to my communion.

8: As pictured, yes. With their typical batter style that allows the onion to slide out? Fucking garbage. 1: A solid choice that reheats well and consistently delivers the yum.

7: Tasty and a fun puzzle as you try to reconstruct the potato.

3: Plain tots? Fuck outa here. Bump that shit up with some totchos.

4: Good in theory, dry as fuck in practice. Texture is inconsistent and offensive to autism.

5: What the fuck is wrong with you? Deadass. Explain your trauma to me.

6: Somehow chalk that reheats into more chalk. Your mom said not to fast food and then pulled these out the oven. Worse than a sweet potato fry.

Tots (The huge crunchy)
Zigzag (The staple chicken side)
Shoestring (Though they're so common that they get old)
Curly (Big mass)
Waffle (A little too wide)

Weirdos:

Wedges (The Bagpipe Theorem: Phenomenal when it's good, terrible when it's bad, it is at the top and the bottom of the list)

Sweet Potato (I tend to not like sweeter things)

Onion Rings (Please God I have ARFID that's not good crunchy)

Thing a about sweet potatoes is, you can eat em straight. Sweet potato fries by themselves are probably less sugar than regular fries + ketchup

Seasoned fries for robbed

34278561

Onions > sweet potatoes > potatoes

Straight out of the fryer

23714856

If it's been on the plate for 10m

13468572

8,7,3,1,5,2,4,6

i do love sweet potato, but quite often it seems they dont fit.

6 is so low on the list, because I genuinely never had good ones. If someone serves crinkle-cut fries, they are always the most bland, soggy, frozen industrial ones they can find.

Similar goes for 2 and 4, although they usually dont taste as bland, they seem to have some seasoning on them.

When cooked well enough, I'd say 1 2 4 5 8 3 6 7.

Ain't no way I'd ever put wedges higher or shoelace lower. Those are always gonna be constant.

Zig zag/crinkle cut goes to the back and I think waffle deserves the #1 spot personally. I agree with the rest of the ordering otherwise.

If we are rating the best type of fries then onion rings are last, being that they aren't even potato.

Doesn't say anything about potatoes.
- Then I declare this debate invalid. Jalapeño poppers aren't even on the list and they're better than all of these.

Onion rings > tots > sweet potato > everything else

And fuck ketchup, combine one part mayonnaise and one part BBQ sauce to dip that shit in

ketchups good with an equal amount of chili pequin sauce mixed in. I learned this at a mexican restaurant that also served burgers and fries for some reason, and haven't been able to go back to any other fry sauce since

I need more popcorn for parsing these comments

I'm loving how passionately people feel about it

Whatever as long as it's not sweet potato.

Shoestrings
Tots
Wedges (but not the ones in this picture)
Onion Rings (they'd be higher on the list but they're not potatoes)
Waffle
Curly
Zigzag (why do they always suck so much? In theory they should be great. Also why are they always sold at public swimming pools?)
Sweet potato

Anything in the list gets to move up +1 when chicken salt is added if the other contenders don't, except sweet potato or onion rings.

Anglosphere ah ah list

1,5,7,8,3,4,2,6

27318645

The top three are Shoestring, Curly, and Wedges, though not necessarily in that order. I still have not managed to figure out how the fuck restaurants make their shoestring (and steak) fries so fucking good.

Next are waffle fries and onion rings. They're okay.

Sweet Potato fries and tots after that. Just not my thing.

Whoever likes zigzag/crinkle-cut fries is a monster. May god have mercy on their twisted souls.

The secret winner though is zucchini fries, which are mana from the heavens.

Best to worst:

wedges (like a mini baked potato, but better!)
shoestring (a tried & true classic)
curly (the perfect blend of potato & seasoning)
zigzag (sometimes can be a bit mushy)
tots (sometimes give me heartburn for some reason)
waffle (often don’t get cooked all the way, if they stick together)
onion rings (a decent alternative to potato based side, but I can’t eat more than a few)
sweet potato (they just don’t fry right. The texture gets weird and the taste is off)

I’ll just take whatever. I’m not picky.

Fuck that potato canoes FTW

Ok there's another factor here and that's taking into account the dipping sauce if any.

Crinkle cut without sauce? Bland. With a good sauce? Those little accordion fucks hold way more than shoestring.

I love my thick wedges! Shoestring always disappoints me for some reason

Onion rings, sweet potatoes, and you can have the rest.

Best to worst.

1
\ 2
\ 4
\ 3
\ 6
\ 7
\ 5
\ 8

Where are you even getting curly or waffle fries from in this country? Feel like I've never seen them in my life.
- Coles sells them, but its hit and miss if they've got them or not. I think aldi sells them as well.
- I think you can get both at costco.

Onion rings top, then tots, then everything else

3,2,1,8,4,5,7,6 for quick first gut reaction

Curly, shoestring, sweet potato. The rest are unappetizing, either too greasy to bear or not crunchy enough. Swap hash browns in for onion rings and we have a contender.

3, 4, 2, 8, 6, 1, 7, 5. Because tots are absolutely immaculate, and sweet potatos (tho good when roasted) are simply not the same kind of satisfying guilty pleasure as the rest.

8, 5, 7, 1, 6, 4, 3, 2

Yes. Also yes... And yes...

2, the rest of the list.

I love curly fries, but the ones depicted look pretty mid

2 - 6 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 8 - 5.
The wedges you can keep.

Can I have your wedges?
Crazy. Mine is almost the reverse of your order
I feel like wedges are a vehicle for sauce and they take spice well.
Make some really spicy wedges and some garlic and chive sour cream... thats a pretty decent combo.

What? No Mojo's??

Best to worst:

Wedges
Shoestring
Curly
Waffle
Sweet Potato (love sweet potatoes, but as fries they're mediocre at best)
Tots (if filled with cream cheese they're #2)
Zigzag
Onion Rings (don't even belong on this list. Otherwise maybe #5)

Wedges
Sweet Potato
Onion Rings
Shoestring
Waffle
Curly
Zigzag
Tots

4, 6 (if super crispy), 1, 3, 2, 7, 5, 8

how are zigzags in (if super crispy)?

From best to worst - 2,8,4,3,7,1,5,6

13482675

54321678

I would like onion rings but shaped like curly fries #2

Chips?

1 > 2 > 5 > 8 > 4 > 3 > 6 > 7

27435618

58142736

Starting with the best: 8,2,3,4,6,7,5,1

Best to worst: 83752461

8-1-ill order something else

72614358

wedges, waffle, tots, onion rings, curly, shoestring, crinkle (never heard them called zigzag), sweet potato

I have had really good sweet potato fries that rank much higher, but they're a gamble. Seem to have greater variation in quality than the other options.

3 >2>4>1>7>8>5>6

Steak cut. Home fries. Has browns

Don't cut my boys out

Wedges, winners

Onion rings second depending on their quality

Then sweet potato fries

[paja] (a Spanish variety that's amazing)

Shoe stings

curly

Zigzag

tots

Waffles

Gimme some of those tots

Never had curlies, tots (not even sure what they are) or waffle fries.
After reading the comments I think I've never had good onion rings or sweet potato fries. Those are a no from me. Onion rings were just deep fried batter and sweet potato was sweet and soggy. Both didn't leave an impresion.

Now my potato of choice is wedges (especially if cooked in an oven). Then whatever is left. Not sure why everyone is hating on zigzags. The thickness is similar to straight fries so it should cook similarly and without seasoning everything will taste bland.

1 6 8 4 3 2 7 5

HOW DARE YOU, onion rings are awesome

!potatoism@lemmy.world

Waffle fries > onion rings > wedges

3>2>4>6…

87326514

5,3,8,4,7,2,6,1

I love all of these, not gonna lie.

3 2 1 4 7 6 8 5

1 2 3 7 8 5 4 6

Rank is less important than the presence or absence of chicken salt.

Sweet potato Onion Rings Curly Tots Shoestrings Wedges Waffle Zigzag.

Tots might be lower on the list, but I found they can work surprizingly well in some lazy microwave meals I make, so they get extra points for ease and dependability.

Shoestring, Onion Ring, Waffle, Tots, Curly, Wedges, Zigzag, Sweet Potato

1st: Curly

2nd: Waffle

3rd: Shoestring

4th: Wedges

5th: Tater Tots

6th: Zig Zag

7th: Onion Rings

8th: Sweet Potato Fries

I genuinely love all of these, and struggled to rank them. Just a total potato gremlin.

These rankings also depend a lot on the source. So I just went with the best I've tasted of each.

So, shoestring and wedges have such a huge range of quality, there are so many ambiguities here!

Not zigzags though. Zigzags can get fucked.

Edit: But really. Trash shoestrings are tue most trash. If you can get the oil hot enough, or do the double drop trick, you get one of the best stand alone fries, but they arent good for dipping in much more than ketchup, and you cant, like, put cheese on them or anything. You need more substantial fries for that. Wedges are similarly niche in the other direction, and the quality of their preparation varies widely.

Edit: replace zigzags with fried zucchini or mushrooms or mozzarella sticks. Then that slot is back in contention.

Those were all just thrown in to cause confusion and distract everybody from the correct answer, Onion Rings.
- Well, yes onion rings are better than the rest.
  Though thick battered and thin breaded onion rings should perhaps be separated.

2, 8, [1/6], [3/4/7], 5

3 –> 1 –> 4 –> 2 –> 6 –> 8 –> 7 –> 5

8, 4, 5, 2, 3, 7.

The rest are not worthy.

Edible tier:

Sweet Potato
Onion rings
Curly
Shoestring + tots (tie)

Garbage Tier:

Wedges
Crinkle cut ("zigzag")
Waffle fries (does anyone actually like these?)

Everyone else is wrong. Yes, even you.

Wedges are better for dipping into a sauce, Waffle fries are the best option for "loaded" fries IMO.
I'm with you on crinkle tho... never had amazing ones.