I’ll admit that I’m pretty tough on Burger King. The fast food chain routinely ranks on the low end of our fast food rankings. Almost always. For what it’s worth, it’s not because I have some sort of weird agenda against Burger King. If anything, BK is the chain I have the most nostalgia for. It’s the one restaurant I always wanted to eat at when I was really young.
I was not a McDonald’s kid, I was fully a card-carrying member of the Burger King Kids Club. The BKKC as I like to call it. I’m not using the words “card-carrying” as some sort of turn of phrase, either. There was an actual card (the 90s were weird like that).
Point being that I want Burger King to succeed. Desperately. And here’s the good news — recent menu items show that a BK comeback might be in the cards.
So to help add some shine to the crown, we’re naming the five absolute best menu items at Burger King for a guaranteed great meal. These menu staples represent the best at BK, so you can order them in confidence. Let’s dive in.
Double Whopper
Why It’s Great:
Who doesn’t appreciate a big burger?
The Double Whopper is excessive in the way the best fast food is. A combination of two grilled beef patties and two slices of American cheese (optional, but get the cheese!), topped with tomato, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun, The beef has that charred flame-grilled flavor that BK is famous for, while the produce is cut thick and has a lot of texture and crispiness to it (the pickles are especially notable, with a nice brine-y tang).
The Whopper is BK’s flagship burger, and compared to something like McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder or Wendy’s Dave’s Double, it just feels like you get more here. My issue with the basic Whopper is that it’s too bread-heavy to really be enjoyable, so I think that extra meat patty really makes a marked difference in the experience.
If that’s still not enough for you, there is always the Triple Whopper.
The Bottom Line:
The burger that made BK famous.
Halfsies
Why It’s Great:
Apparently, Burger King calls this 50-50 mix of fried onion rings and french fries “halfsies,” when they could’ve just called them by the obviously superior name, “Frings.” But, I’ll try not to hold that against them.
I don’t have too much to say about this dish, French fries are delicious, and so are onion rings — thanks to BK for making it so that we don’t have to choose. More fast food places should have fried onion rings, and they should all allow us to order frings.
The fries are good, they aren’t McDonald’s, but they’re nicely salted and have a good crunch to them. The onion rings are the star here though, they’re greasy in the best way, and have the sweet subtle buttery flavor that’s characteristic of fried onions.
The Bottom Line:
Why have to choose between onion rings and fries when you can just have both?
Chicken Fries
Why It’s Great:
Chicken Fries are pretty unique. They’re not quite chicken nuggets (though they have that highly processed texture) and they’re certainly not chicken tenders because they aren’t whole cuts of chicken, so what the hell are they? They’re chicken fries! I’m not completely in love with the texture, but the breading on this stuff features the best blend of spices on the entire Burger King menu.
At first bite, these things are incredibly zesty, with notes of paprika, black pepper, and onion powder. Those flavors are a natural pair for BK’s BBQ sauce which adds a slightly spicy flavor to the breading, with some gentle sweet smokey notes.
The Bottom Line:
The meat-to-breading ratio makes this processed nugget snack a different experience than a chicken nugget. Thanks to a flavorful breading, eating these things is a joy.
Rodeo Burger
Why It’s Great:
Every fast food chain needs, what I like to call, a “decadent burger.” This is a burger that throws caution to the wind and stacks sodium on sodium, carb on carb, it’s a burger that doesn’t care if you live or die and while I wouldn’t recommend eating these things daily (or even once a week) giving in can taste delicious. The Rodeo Burger is that burger.
This thing is simple. You’ve got a beef patty smothered in BBQ sauce, and topped with fried onion rings on a sesame seed bun. It’s beefy, smokey, sweet, salty, buttery, savory, crunchy — it attempts to hit all five senses of taste and delivers a great texture. If this thing had a Shiitake mushroom in it, we could’ve hit umami.
The Bottom Line:
Burger King’s decadent masterpiece.
Fiery Buffalo Nuggets
Why It’s Great:
One of BK’s new menu additions, the Fiery Buffalo Nuggets is reason alone to take a trip to the BK drive-thru. These nuggets have a strong pungent buffalo sauce aroma. Because they’re tossed in sauce, they lose just a bit of the crunch you’d expect from a chicken nugget, but what you get instead is a tangy buffalo flavor complemented by some earthy black pepper.
What I like to do is dip these nuggets in BK’s ranch to add an extra savory herbal quality to the flavor profile.
The Bottom Line:
BK’s newest menu item. A tangy-saucy spin on BK’s chicken nuggets.
