1 day Ago By [email protected] (Alexa Valme)
Fast food chains have spent years trying to perfect the chicken sandwich, each promising crispy, flavorful bites. Wendy's has long been a major player in the fried chicken sandwich game, being the first big chain to offer a spicy chicken sandwich in 1995. Now with seven options to choose from, we set out to find the best pick.
Daily Meal put Wendy's full lineup of chicken sandwiches to the test , judging each sandwich on flavor, texture, and balance — with an emphasis on cohesion. A great sandwich needs to make sense from the first bite to the last, every ingredient playing its role without taking over the others. Some sandwiches brought the heat (maybe a little too much) while others failed to stand out, but one crispy contender rose to the top.
Daily Meal ranked Wendy's Crispy Chicken BLT at the top of the list because it elevated Wendy's standard crispy chicken with smoky bacon, melted cheese, and just enough mayo to add richness without altering the balance. It wasn't the biggest, boldest option on the menu, but it executed the basics flawlessly; showing that a great fast food chicken sandwich doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to be done right. A sandwich built to last The Crispy Chicken BLT didn't launch with much noise.
It first appeared in test markets in late 2015 as a straightforward value option, featuring crispy chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese, mayo, and Applewood smoked bacon. By April 2016, it officially joined Wendy's 4 for $4 lineup, offering customers a budget-friendly combo that didn't cut corners on flavor or texture. Since then, the sandwich has become a mainstay.
Now part of the Biggie Bag, it's stayed true to its original form, even as other parts of Wendy's menu have changed. And for fans of the discontinued Valley Crispy Chicken Club , this is basically the same bite — only with cheese (which is a known ordering hack). Fans of the Crispy Chicken BLT are lucky it's stuck around for so long; just look at Burger King's Ch'King sandwich, which got a full-blown rollout and national campaign, only to be pulled less than two years after its launch.
Wendy's might have made some questionable decisions in the past (let's not talk about when they took away the SuperBar), but one thing's for sure — launching the Crispy Chicken BLT isn't one of them..
