10 Fast Food Chicken Sandwiches, Ranked

In today's fast food landscape, you'd be hard pressed to find a restaurant that didn't feature a chicken sandwich on its menu. However, that wasn't always the case. While restaurants like Chick-fil-A specialize in it -– and even claim to have invented it -– most restaurants began with all-beef burger menus that were slow to adopt the white meat option. Since then, the menus have gotten a poultry-fueled makeover with what seems like endless options, and in a sea of chicken sandwiches, it can be hard to know which ones to opt for.

I took the guesswork out of your chicken sandwich buying by taste-testing the classic chicken offering from 10 different national chains, ranking them using a varied set of criteria outlined in the final slide. I found that some of the more impressive looking sandwiches weren't so impressive on flavor, while some of the cheapest, plainest options delivered big on value. The bottom line? I thought about which ones I'd recommend to friends -– and here's my definitive ranking, from worst to best.

McDonald's isn't known for being the best food around town, but that's part of the charm. The food is consistent enough, quick, and inexpensive, with a particularly perfect amount of grease for soaking up late nights at the bar. I withheld any expectations here and rated the McCrispy honestly, but compared to the sandwiches at the top of the list, it still fell to the bottom of the pack. 

The McCrispy does the job, offering a crispy chicken patty on a soft bun for one of the lowest prices of the list, but it falls short on value. The bland patty is equivalent to a frozen chicken patty, the bun a nearly flat, synthetic-tasting bread. The toppings included only two pickles, making it an unremarkable and dry sandwich overall. I'd give it credit for being cheap, but it's only the second cheapest on the list and just a few cents less than my top choice. Overall, I'd skip this one, opting for the Dollar Menu McChicken instead.

Dangerously close to McDonald's' ranking, Sonic delivers a surprisingly low-quality sandwich. The sandwich comes with lettuce, mayonnaise, and pickles, but the few toppings are enough to tank the sandwich's ratings on their own. The lettuce, haphazardly cut, is browning in places and the pickles are limp and sour. Worst of all, the mayonnaise tastes strangely sweet, almost as if it was made using sugar. This begs the question: would the sandwich rank better without the toppings at all? 

The truth is, the chicken on this sandwich isn't impressive, either, looking similar to a frozen patty. It is also seemingly breaded instead of battered, with very little seasoning and an unsatisfying crunch. The reason I put this above McDonald's is because the sandwich itself is pretty sturdy, with a fluffy bun that passes the "smush" test. For a few cents more, it's a better value than McDonald's' flat, nearly topping-free sandwich, but a far cry from the others on the list.

Though there's a significant jump in the rankings between the bottom two and the rest of the list, I was still surprised when I had to rank KFC low. KFC specializes in crunchy bone-in fried chicken with homestyle sides, but what I found is that the comforting flavor just doesn't quite translate to the sandwich. The chicken is made the same way as the bone-in options, with the same seasonings, but placed on a bun with a few choice toppings. 

Don't get me wrong, the chicken is impressive -– a hefty, crunchy piece of boneless chicken with a good amount of moisture. It comes with four pickles and a sweet mayonnaise, making it one of the less-dressed options on the list, and perhaps the reason it rates so low. While the chicken is super-crispy, it isn't very flavorful and the sandwich as a whole is fairly bland. When seeking chicken sandwiches, I'm likely to suggest elsewhere, recommending KFC instead for what they do best: crunchy drumsticks and creamy mashed potatoes.

I'll admit that this one was a surprise. We all know the flat, oblong Original Crispy (OC), a lackluster Burger King sandwich that competes with McDonald's' value-menu McChicken. The Royal Crispy is a departure from the OC, bringing a mouthful of flavor and a respectable crunch with every bite. Rating just a hair above KFC, Burger King's crispy chicken sandwich is full of fresh toppings like tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, and pickles, falling short only on the chicken itself. 

Unlike KFC's thick chicken breast, Burger King uses a flat chicken cutlet, making it a little more dry than its competitors. The flavor, however, is robust, made up of seasonings that give the sandwich as a whole more flavor. The reason this sandwich falls lower on the list than its competitors is the price tag -– while I'd recommend this as a great budget option, it doesn't quite have the value of a $7 sandwich. 

Having lived in Wisconsin, I consider myself a Culver's super fan and was gutted to rank this one so low. Culver's makes a great chicken tender with a uniquely thin, crispy, savory exterior, and I assumed the chicken sandwich would be the same. The chicken is moist -– the most moist of the group, even. Unfortunately, the moisture might have contributed to its low ranking. 

The sandwich comes with a large, beefy tomato slice, lettuce, and pickles on a Kaiser bun — all of which get soggy pretty quickly, despite the sandwich not including mayo. The chicken is lighter in color than its competitors and even Culver's own chicken tenders with much less flavor and crunch, too. Overall, this sandwich is unbalanced, with a dry bun and wet interior, which isn't a great value for the high price. The sandwich gains value on the lower options in that it's still by far the most moist chicken with a good amount of toppings and a solid presentation.

If you've eaten through enough of the Wendy's extensive menu, you'd expect it to be a pretty good competitor here. Wendy's is strong on flavor, and the chicken sandwich is no exception. The chicken itself is juicy -– though thin -– crispy, and well-seasoned. In fact, it has one of the best flavors on the list and a generous amount of toppings to complement it; as one of the only sandwiches with Romaine lettuce and a tomato, it is one of the better sandwiches overall. 

The reason I scored Wendy's lower than others is the value — the price is higher others that had fresher, crispier chicken and just as many toppings. Though the Wendy's patty was flavorful, it was still thinner than the top sandwiches, leading it to be a little more dry, as well. I'd happily recommend this sandwich to friends, confident that they'd have a good meal, but I wouldn't recommend it as the best chicken sandwich they could buy.

Before we dive into the final few, I have to note that these last four are all strong picks with enough differences that any of them could easily be anyone's number one. Popeye's is a thick, crispy, fresh fried chicken breast, a strong contender in the fried chicken sandwich game. It's similar to KFC, but with better seasonings in the breading and more flavor overall. It's also a better value over not only KFC, but of any on the list. The sandwich comes in at just under $5, a remarkably low price for such a large sandwich. 

Needless to say, the sandwich is overall less composed than my top three, the bread so smushed that it is flat and the toppings a little sour and limp. The flavor of the sandwich is generally what you'd expect of Popeye's, but the bread is so sweet it reminds me of a Hawaiian roll. While a strong contender, thanks to its meaty, crunchy chicken, it falls short on flavor and overall sandwich balance, giving it only fourth place on my list.

Raising Cane's is famous for its one and only menu item: chicken fingers. You'd typically order the famously unique combo of chicken fingers, Texas Toast, coleslaw, and Cane's sauce, a spicy ketchup-mayo mixture that complements the chicken. I know what you're thinking: "Raising Cane's has a sandwich?" I'm here to tell you that it does, and it's a good one.

True to the theme of the restaurant, the Raising Cane's chicken sandwich is simply a few of its chicken fingers on a sesame seed bun. It rates highly, though, because not only are the chicken fingers crispy, tender, and fresh, but the bread is sturdy. The lettuce is also crisp, and the usual mayo is swapped for Cane's' famous sauce. Though the sandwich is the third-highest price on the list, the cost is worth it for such a large sandwich at such a high quality. And a pro tip? If you really want to level up this sandwich, switch the bun out for Texas Toast.

I tried to withhold my bias here -– Shake Shack is one of my favorite burgers, and my expectations for its chicken rendition were pretty high. Shake Shack is an expensive option among fast food competitors (so much so that it's considered fast casual), but the costly price tag affords an elevated experience that reflects in the food. That being said, how does Shake Shack compare to much cheaper options, and why does that make it worth buying?

The Chicken Shack is a near-perfect chicken sandwich. The chicken breast is fresh and tender like Popeye's while still being flat and crispy, a necessary component in a handheld sandwich. The breading is a dark golden brown with a rich flavor, far from bland without being overdone. The mayo is made with buttermilk and herbs, which complements the classic sandwich, and a soft potato bun encloses the meat and toppings in a unique way. The Chicken Shack could easily rank first among its competitors if it wasn't for one final sandwich — the one that started it all.

I really tried not to automatically rank this sandwich as number one, but the truth is, a place that specializes in chicken sandwiches is bound to have mastered it. The Chick-fil-A sandwich is relatively unimpressive at face value — a thin chicken breast, smushed bread, and a couple pickles make up the small sandwich. On presentation, the sandwich falls towards the bottom of the list, near-indistinguishable from a McCrispy. Where it redeems itself tenfold is the flavor and texture: the flavor is completely different than any other on the list, with a pickle-like sweetness that often gets misconstrued as a pickle brine. 

The patty is fresh and crispy, the darkest of the list, an indicator of flavor usually attributed to a brine (hence the myth of the pickle brine). The bun, though squished, is soft and buttery, and the pickles hold their weight as the sole topping. Coupled with being one of the lowest prices on the list, I had to admit the sandwich was the best overall and the one I came back to finish after testing the other nine. Pro tip: if the lettuce and tomato are deal breakers for you, just order the deluxe for a few cents more (even with the upgrade, it's still one of the cheapest on the list).

First, I took note of the presentation, toppings, and bun, rating them for cleanliness (in other words, not smushed), topping value, and bread quality. Then, I rated the chicken itself, evaluating the flavor, moisture, thickness, and freshness. Finally, I considered the sandwich as a whole, ranking also by which sandwiches had the best balance of flavor for the best value, using the price of the sandwich as a guide. I didn't include service or wait time, taking into consideration that those factors may vary widely on location and time of day. I also didn't consider add-on toppings, sticking with the standard menu offering for the most fair comparisons. To determine the rankings as honestly as possible, I gave each sandwich a rank out of 10 based on these factors and only compared sandwiches when tiebreakers were needed.