Bachelor on the Cheap

By Mike Thayer

Wendy's Classic Chicken Sandwich

There's been a chicken sandwich war going on in fast food, it started in 2019 and it's still going on today.  

Shots fired!  Chick-fil-A made headlines in 2019 becoming the third largest fast food chain, led with their classic chicken sandwich.  Popeyes reacted by putting a new chicken sandwich on the menu and consumers went crazy over it, so crazy in fact, Popeyes ran out of ammo. Already armed with a spicy chicken sandwich, Wendy's entered the battlefield that year by bringing back their spicy chicken nuggets, fans of the item went in a Twitter frenzy.  

Popeye's Chicken Sandwich has been so popular, it is now considered THE gold standard for a chicken sandwich.  So how do all the other fast food joints stack up?  In the name of 'food science' (cough), I intend to find out. 

In this Chicken Sandwich War Challenge, sandwiches are evaluated and scored on the following criteria:  Visual appeal, the meat, bun, meat to bun ratio, crunch factor, the pickle/mayo and of course, overall taste.  There are 1-9 points available for each category for a total possible total score of 63. 

The lettuce and tomato takes away from the twang of the pickle

I recently sampled Wendy's Classic Chicken Sandwich, which features a crispy all-white meat chicken breast with mayonnaise, pickles, lettuce and tomato on a warm, toasted bun.

This is a good sandwich, but not great.  It had a decent visual appeal aside from the oversized leaf of lettuce, the chicken breast was a good size but thick on one end, kind of thin on the other.  With that in mind the meat to bun ratio was OK but the crunch just wasn't there despite the nice visual.  And the sandwich was over dressed.  There was too much mayo, with the lettuce and tomato not really adding much to the sandwich, in fact, they took away from the tartness of a good pickle, which in writing, Wendy's needs a better pickle.  Overall, not a bad chicken sandwich, but there's better out there (KFC) and this Chicken Sandwich War Challenge is just getting started!

An over-dressed sandwich

I paid $8 and change for a combo meal (just the sandwich is $4.99 making it a bit pricier than other competitors), and the sandwich scored 51 points out of a possible 63.  I'm giving the Wendy's Classic Chicken Sandwich a weak 4 out of 5 Bachelor on the Cheap stars.  It's an iffy repeat buy, definitely not a first choice when in the mood for a chicken sandwich. 

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