McDonald's doesn't need their Crispy Chicken Sandwich

Posted on May 30, 2021

The chicken sandwich wars rage on. Everybody and their mother has a decent chicken sandwich now. It’s basically money in the bank, right? Just slap a patty on some buns with mayo and pickles, and you’re set. Why wouldn’t you do it? You’ve gotta keep up with the Joneses, right?

What do you do when you are the Joneses?

McDonald’s has never been much for a “follower” in the fast food industry. They aren’t even really trendsetters - McDonald’s just does whatever it wants to and enjoys its comfortable space as the leader of the Big Three, as the biggest fast food restaurant franchise in the world, and lets the rest of them scramble for scraps. 

But some trends are just too big to ignore. Even Coca-Cola had to bend to the rise of diet soda in the 60s, with the introduction of Tab and eventually Diet Coke. Chick-fil-A is slowly rising to make the Big Three a Big Four, and the Chicken Sandwich Wars are fundamentally a response to that. If you don’t have a good chicken sandwich, you’re being left in the dust. Everybody is getting on board the train. So what took McDonalds so long?

And you know what - should they have taken even longer with their Crispy Chicken Sandwich?

The Crispy Chicken Sandwich is a carbon copy of every other The Chicken Sandwich on the market. Mild or spicy mayo, pickles, a whole chicken breast, two buns. When you lay it out like that, it feels like “this is what people are going crazy over?” It’s just chicken, isn’t it? McDonalds has had chicken sandwiches like this for years. Why are we collectively losing our shit over it?

The sandwich in its bag
The sandwich outside of the bag

Like all other The Chicken Sandwiches this sandwich is served in a little foil pouch, as well. We got the spicy kind because why would you ever get mild? At first impression, the sandwich looked weak. The bun was kind of squashed and the patty looked small. The pickles were not thick-cut, like a proper The Chicken Sandwich is supposed to be - they were completely ordinary hamburger pickles. The whole point of the pickles is to add a textural contrast! You could just squirt some pickle brine on this and call it a day if you’re going to give us regular thin pickles. It’s not like we expect a lot from McDonald’s, but come on.

And yeah, it’s terrible. We’re not going to mince words that this is the worst The Chicken Sandwich we’ve ever had. The patty was dry, the bun was squishy, and the mayo was actually super hot. If there’s a damning with faint praise we can say, it’s that this is easily the spiciest The Chicken Sandwich we’ve tried yet. It’s super hot in an unpleasant, tingling way that sticks around long after you’ve finished eating, the kind of spicy that water only inflames further. Hope you ordered one of their famous ice milk shakes to go with this one, because you’ll want it.

The inside of the sandwich

The patty itself was the lowest point of this sandwich. The texture of the meat was rubbery, and the coating was anything but crispy. It felt like eating an especially bland hockey puck that was rolled in breadcrumbs a little. No flavor at all, without the mayonnaise. We really wouldn’t want to get plain mayo with this, it would be like eating it right out of the jar with a rubber spoon. Disgusting.

Don’t get the McDonalds chicken sandwich. Seriously, don’t. It’s genuinely very, very bad, and we can’t in good conscience recommend it to anybody. Go to ANY other fast food place, they’ll have one that’s better. We’re imploring you. Seriously, what took McDonald’s so long on this? It’s just a sandwich - did they have to test and test again just to get it right? Because they didn’t. No test market would have approved of this sandwich.

McDonalds, we don’t love you, and we don’t want to give you advice, but you really need to stick to doing your own thing. You know you can rest on your laurels. You’re Mc Fucking Donalds, and you can do whatever it is you want. Why settle for going down to the same level as everybody else when you could go big? You don’t need a new chicken sandwich, you need something so far out of left field that nobody else could imagine doing it, let alone imagine affording it. Start selling wagyu steaks. Start giving your workers full benefits. Start selling diamond rings with every chicken nugget. I know you’re reading this, McDonalds. I know you’re listening to us. So please, start spending huge quantities of your money on nonsense. It would be more appealing than having to copy everybody else all the time.

Categories: food

Tagged: chicken chicken sandwich mcdonald's sandwich

On this day...