Bachelor on the Cheap

By Mike Thayer

The wrapper says "Ultra Crispy" but is it?

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. 

Nice Bun!

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. 

I recently sampled Burger King's Hand Breaded Crispy Chicken Sandwich.  This sandwich arrives late to the chicken sandwich war that started in 2019 and Burger King's 'effort' here is a flat out copycat attempt taken from Popeyes.   So how good is this copycat attempt, was this sandwich worth the wait?

Here's the Burger King description of the sandwich:  Our sandwich has a thick cut white meat chicken breast that is freshly breaded by hand for a bite that is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Served on a toasty potato bun with crisp deli pickles and a savory signature sauce.

No, this sandwich was NOT worth the wait. 

The chicken was over-fried and I'm thinking the fryer temp was not where it needed to be (not hot enough) because the breast was NOT crispy, it was chewy.  The meat itself was dry and stringy.  The chicken portion was also a bit small compared to the competition - especially Popeyes - with the chicken breast failing to really reach beyond the borders of the bun, a sub-par meat to bun ratio.  The bun itself was quite nice and the deli pickles and savory mayo were spot on, in fact, the bun, pickles and mayo were the best parts of this sandwich and that's a sad statement.  A chicken sandwich that fails to highlight the main ingredient....

Over-fried chicken and didn't get pickle in every bite

I paid just $6.98 for my Burger King Hand Breaded Crispy Chicken Sandwich Combo Meal and it scored just 44 out 63 possible points.  That is the second lowest score registered so far in this challenge and the second worst sandwich.  While the combo meal was reasonably priced, this sandwich is NOT a repeat buy and gets 3 out of 5 Bachelor on the Cheap stars.

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Related:  Wendy's Classic Chicken Sandwich

Related:  Popeye's Classic Chicken Sandwich

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