Introduction: Homemade Doritos

About: Former Instructables employee. Living in San Francisco amidst the fog. I love getting my hands dirty by taking on new projects, developing unique skills and learning fun facts.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a recipe for how to make homemade Cool Ranch Dortios. You can thank me later, once you're done licking the powder off your fingers.

Step 1: Tortilla Chips

Tortilla chips are simple to make, whether you plan on converting them to Doritos or not.  For your tortilla chips you will need:
  • Soft corn tortillas
  • an oil with a light flavor, like sunflower, soybean, canola, etc.
Using a pastry brush, spread a thin layer of oil on both sides of 1 tortilla. Lie flat on cutting board, and stack on another, brushing oil on the top. Repeat until you have a substantial pile. 

Take a sharp knife, and cut your pile of tortillas into even sixths. Lay out on an oiled baking sheet. It doesn't matter if your triangles are touching, but try to not have any overlap. 

Bake at 350 until they start to lightly brown, approximately 10 minutes. Be sure to watch carefully so they don't burn.

If you're not in the mood for Doritos anymore, salt lightly and enjoy with salsa.

Step 2: Mix Seasonings

This was the hard part, makers, but for you I pushed myself through exhaustive "research" to perfect the Cool Ranch powder. Lots of Doritos bags were finished off in the process, and a special thanks to Carleyy for her help in the test kitchen.

With a small bowl and whisk, mix together your seasonings. These are approximate measurements - it's all about taste testing to your own preferences. But with these ingredients and ratios I got a powder that tastes just like the real thing
  • 1/2 packet Hidden Valley ranch mix
  • 1/4 packet cheese powder from a box of white cheddar mac n' cheese
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • pinch paprika
This made about enough seasoning for a large bag. You'll need ~2 teaspoons of finished spices per baking sheet of chips.

Step 3: Coat Chips

To coat your fresh tortilla chips with Dorito-goodness, you will first be spraying them with oil. Ideally, I would use my own oil and spray it on the chips with a spray bottle or mister. However I don't have those things, so I checked out my grocery store's selection of Pam spray oils. If you're doing this, I suggest reading through some of the ingredients on the back before you buy - a lot of those products have strange ingredients for non-stick purposes, that don't really apply here.

When you're armed with oil, spray your chips lightly while they're still on the baking sheet. Dump into a large gallon-sized Ziplock bag, and add powder (again, about 2 teaspoons per baking sheet of chips. If you like them stronger, add more!)

Shake! You'll see that the powder easily sticks to the chips.

Step 4: Enjoy!

Well that was easy! Pour Doritos into a bowl (or don't, if you believe Doritos are better enjoyed straight from the bag) and snack guilt-free




*note: I was going for entirely homemade Doritos with this Instructable. But if you need to quench your Doritos craving in a pinch, I'm willing to bet you can use this powder recipe to coat store-bought tortilla chips, and it'll taste just fine. If you try this let me know how it works out!