Lay's Holi-LAY'S Thanksgiving Chips 2026: All 5 Flavors and Dates

There is a moment every Thanksgiving when someone at the table says the quiet part out loud: the side dishes are better than the turkey. The potatoes. The gravy. The stuff people quietly take seconds of while pretending they are just being polite. Somebody at Lay's heard that and thought: what if all of that, but crunchy, and in a bag you can eat on the couch? That is the entire idea behind Holi-LAY'S, and honestly, it is hard to argue with it.

Here is the thing you need to know before you start hunting. These are limited-time flavors, and they do not all drop on the same day. They roll out in three waves across October, November, and December, and two of them keep expanding into 2027. So before you run to the store, read the calendar. Because the flavor you want most might not even be out yet, and the one that is out might not be out for long.

The Drop Calendar: All 5 Flavors, In Order

• October 25 — Cheddar Scalloped-Style Potatoes. The cheesy potato side, chip form.
• October 25 — Roasted Holiday Turkey. Roasted turkey and gravy with rosemary and sage. The main event, in a bag.
• November 8 — Maple Bacon. The US debut. Breakfast crashing Thanksgiving, and nobody is stopping it.
• December 1 — Wavy Milk Chocolate. Wavy chips, milk chocolate, at select retailers first, then expanding in 2027.
• December 1 — Wavy Dubai-Style Dark Chocolate. Dark chocolate, pistachios, and Wavy crunch, also expanding in 2027.

That is the whole calendar. Tape it to your fridge, because limited-time chips have a way of vanishing right around the time you finally decide you want to try them.

October: Dinner Shows Up as a Chip

The first two flavors land on October 25, and they are the most Thanksgiving-y of the bunch, which makes sense. You lead with the dinner itself. Cheddar Scalloped-Style Potatoes takes the cheesy potato side dish and turns it into a chip, which is the kind of idea that sounds obvious the second you hear it and then you wonder why nobody did it sooner. Scalloped potatoes are already the side dish people quietly take seconds of while pretending they are just being polite. As a chip, they skip the whole baking dish situation entirely.

Then there is Roasted Holiday Turkey, and this one is doing the most work: roasted turkey and gravy with rosemary and sage. That is not just "turkey flavor." That is the full plate. The bird, the gravy poured over it, and the herbs that make your kitchen smell like November. If you have ever stood in a kitchen while someone bastes a turkey and thought "I wish I could eat this smell," congratulations, that is now a bag of chips. Fair warning, though: eating turkey-flavored chips while an actual turkey is in the oven is a bold move. Your family will have questions. Answer them with the bag.

October also gives you a full month to decide which of the two deserves a spot on the real Thanksgiving table. Probably both.

November: Maple Bacon Makes Its US Debut

November 8 brings Maple Bacon, and the detail that matters here is "US debut." This flavor is arriving in America for the first time. Maple and bacon together is one of those combinations that sounds like breakfast and tastes like a dare: sweet, salty, smoky, all at once. On a chip, that combination is either going to be the thing everyone fights over or the thing people pretend they do not like while eating the whole bag. There is no middle ground with maple bacon. There never has been.

The timing is perfect, too. Early November is when Thanksgiving planning shifts from "we should do something" to "oh no, it is in three weeks." A bag of Maple Bacon chips is the lowest-effort way into the holiday spirit: no cooking, no guest list, no seating chart arguments.

October and November are the warm-up. December is where this whole thing goes off the rails, in the best way. Scroll past this and I will show you the two chocolate ones, including the one with pistachios that everyone is going to be talking about.

December: Chocolate Chips Go Wavy

December 1 is when things get properly weird, in the best way. Both December flavors are Wavy chips covered in chocolate, which is a sentence that would have sounded like a prank five years ago and now just sounds like dessert.

Wavy Milk Chocolate lands at select retailers on December 1, then expands in 2027. "Select retailers" is the important part here. This one will not be everywhere on day one, so if you want it early, you will have to actually look for it. The Wavy part matters too: those ridges are not just for looks. Ridges hold more chocolate, and more chocolate on a chip is the entire point of the exercise.

Wavy Dubai-Style Dark Chocolate also lands December 1 and also expands in 2027, and this one brings dark chocolate, pistachios, and Wavy crunch together. The pistachios are the twist. They add a nutty crunch on top of the chip crunch, which is crunch squared, and the dark chocolate keeps the whole thing from tipping over into too-sweet territory. Dubai-style chocolate treats have been all over social media, so this flavor is clearly playing to the crowd that already knows exactly what that means. If you are that crowd, you already have your calendar marked. If you are not, consider this your introduction.

December strategy: put a bowl of the chocolate ones next to the actual desserts at a holiday party and watch people try to figure out whether they are eating a chip or a candy. The answer is both.

How to Run a Chip Tasting Night

If you get your hands on more than one flavor, do not just eat them one bag at a time in front of the TV. Make it an event. Put each flavor in its own bowl, hide the bags, and make everyone guess which one is which. The turkey-and-gravy one will fool exactly nobody, and that is fine. The fun is watching someone confidently declare the maple bacon is the turkey, and then having to live with that forever.

Score them on three things: crunch, flavor, and "would I buy this again." Wavy wins the crunch round, the October pair wins the flavor round, and the "buy again" round decides which bag you go back for before they disappear.

Pair the tasting with something real, too. A salty chip night deserves a proper meal before or after. Our garlic herb chicken and potatoes is the kind of one-pan dinner that makes a snack night feel like an occasion, and the one-pan dinners that beat takeout will keep everyone fed without anyone having to cook all day. Wash it all down with something thick and sweet from our thick milkshakes list, and if the morning after needs rescuing, these zero-effort dinners have you covered.

Quick Questions

How many Holi-LAY'S Thanksgiving flavors are there? Five, all limited-time: Cheddar Scalloped-Style Potatoes, Roasted Holiday Turkey, Maple Bacon, Wavy Milk Chocolate, and Wavy Dubai-Style Dark Chocolate.

When does each flavor come out? Cheddar Scalloped-Style Potatoes and Roasted Holiday Turkey on October 25, Maple Bacon on November 8, and both Wavy chocolate flavors on December 1.

What does Roasted Holiday Turkey taste like? Roasted turkey and gravy with rosemary and sage, according to the announcement.

Are the chocolate flavors gone after December? Not entirely, both Wavy chocolate flavors expand further in 2027, though Wavy Milk Chocolate starts at select retailers only.

So that is the whole Holi-LAY'S lineup: dinner as a chip in October, maple bacon crashing the party in November, and chocolate-covered Wavy chips closing out the year in December. Start with the October pair for the full Thanksgiving experience, save room for the December chocolate ones, and do not sleep on the Maple Bacon debut. First-time US flavors do not come around twice.