French fries are perfect. It’s astounding that something so simple — potatoes, cut, fried, and seasoned — can be so damn good. It’s a food that needs little improvement and yet… we’re not going to stop our favorite fast food brands from trying to elevate this mighty side dish. And the easiest way to do so is by piling salty cheese all over the fries.
Cheese fries take an already perfect dish and make it somehow better. Now granted, cheese fries are not as much of a necessity as French fries because once you start piling cheese, sauces, and other ingredients on top of a bed of fries it turns your side dish into a meal in itself — which makes it hard to balance when you’re also eating a giant bacon burger or a spicy chicken sandwich. Still, on those rare days that you feel like going HAM, cheese fries are the play.
So who makes the best cheese fries in fast food? We’re finding out by putting a few of our favorites to the blind taste test.
Methodology:
For the blind taste test, I didn’t want to limit the options to strictly fries with cheese on them. While I think this is a perfectly acceptable way to enjoy cheese fries, I think we can all agree that more ingredients are better.
Because we’re dealing with something that is going to taste best melted and hot, I had to pick fast food restaurants that were relatively close to one another so that I could pick up all the fries quickly before the cheese could harden and make the dish inedible.
That hurdle only allowed me to pick up fries from four establishments. Here are today’s players:
- Rally’s — Fully Loaded Fries
- In-N-Out — Animal Style Fries
- Shake Shack — Bacon Cheese Fries
- Wendy’s — Baconator Fries
Once I had the fries, I drove up to a local parking lot, sat outside on a curb, donned a blindfold, and had my girlfriend bring each order of fries to me at random. Will people notice if you wear a blindfold and sit in a parking lot while eating cheese fries on a curb? Yes. Yes, they will. Luckily people didn’t seem to think I was insane. Instead, they asked, “Are you a YouTuber?”
Maybe I should be! Anyway, here were the results.
Part 1: The Cheese Fries Blind Taste Test
Taste 1:
Crispy, a great mouthfeel here. underneath all the crunch I’m getting a heavy dose of salty cheese, some herbal notes, a hint of tang, and light smokey notes from bacon. The bacon seems a bit soggy to me, it doesn’t have much crunch, but the texture of the fries makes up for that.
The fries themselves are amazing, I’m tasting a lot of black pepper, a hint of ginger, and some sea salt.
Taste 2:
The fries here are a bit soggy, but I’m really liking the smokey, sweet, and salty flavor of the bacon. The cheese on this one has hardened a bit, but it’s not affecting the flavor too much.
A real focus on salt here, not enough to be overwhelming but that is the strongest flavor note I’m picking up on. The potatoes have a sort of bitter flavor to them, very natural tasting, if they weren’t soggy it would massively improve the experience.
Overall? Good, not great.
Taste 3:
This one is a bit of a mess. Again, the fries are a little soggy, making each forkful less crispy than I’d like it to be but the flavor is pretty good. I’m getting grilled caramelized onions and a lot of sweetness and tang that give each bite a savory vibe that is addicting.
The cheese adds a noticeable salty characteristic but the onions feel like the star of the show. Meaning that I can be certain which iconic Cali restaurant served these.
Taste 4:
The bacon is thin, but flavorful. The cheese has a sort of milky quality to it that I don’t love, but the bacon is so good, offering smokey and sweet flavors, that I’m willing to give this cheese a pass.
The fries are crispy and work as a great foundation for the other ingredients. I’m torn on this one. Easily this is the best bacon of the four, but there isn’t much of it and most of what I’m getting are salty fries and that weird, wet cheese.
If there is a way to order this option with extra bacon, definitely do it.
Part 2: The Cheese Fries Ranking
4. Wendy’s — Baconator Fries (Taste 2)
Great bacon, but where this order fails is in the fries — which were soggy — and the cheese which wasn’t abundant enough. Now granted, you could argue that it was the transit time that hurt this order the most but I disagree.
The order was still hot — I think the main issue is that these are served in a plastic box, which gets sweaty. I will say that even though I’m ranking these at the bottom, they’re still pretty tasty and worth ordering. But for a dish that shares a name with the mighty Baconator burger, this is a bit disappointing.
The Bottom Line:
Good, but it’s built on a shaky foundation. Wendy’s French fries are far from the best, and until they have better fries as a base, will never truly be great.
Find your nearest Wendy’s here.
3. In-N-Out — Animal Style Fries (Taste 3)
This order was the one major outlier in this taste best because it’s the only one of the three that didn’t have bacon, but you know what? I didn’t miss it. The Animal Style Fries are coming in at the third place spot for me not due to a lack of flavor, but just because these weren’t the best french fries to build upon.
In-N-Out’s fries are made from natural potatoes cut and diced in restaurant, which makes for a tasty fry but not a crunchy one. With all the layers of cheese and sauce, this dish just lacked texture. But given that In-N-Out’s burgers are pretty small, I think this makes for a great pairing with the brand’s very famous burger. It may be the only order of cheese fries that doesn’t feel like a meal in itself.
The Bottom Line:
It’s not top-tier but Animal Style Fries are still very satisfying and enjoyable. Especially if you’re one of those people who don’t love In-N-Out’s regular french fries.
Find your nearest In-N-Out here.
2. Shake Shack — Bacon Cheese Fries (Taste 4)
Straight up, what made this order of cheese fries get the second place spot is the bacon. Without the bacon, I have no doubt that this would’ve ranked last for me.
Last week I did a blind taste test of Bacon Cheeseburgers and complained that Shake Shack’s bacon was too thin to be enjoyable, I stand by that when it comes to burgers, but fries are the perfect canvas for this applewood smoked bacon to come alive.
The cheese, I find straight up off-putting. Rather than melted cheese, it’s a milky and runny cheese sauce. Luckily the texture of the fries and bacon are enough to offset the wet quality of the cheese, giving these cheese fries a lot of crunch and a satisfying salty and smoky flavor.
The Bottom Line:
Great, but the worst part about the cheese fries is the cheese — that’s a weird thing to come to terms with. I wish Shake Shack would just melt a few slices of American cheese on this order of fries but until then, it remains the best way to experience Shake Shack’s bacon.
Find your nearest Shake Shack here.
1. Rally’s — Fully Loaded Fries (Taste 1)
This is the first time Rally’s has ever taken a top spot in one of our food rankings, so if you’re a hardcore Rally’s/Checkers fan — congrats! Rally’s Fully Loaded Fries were far and above the best entry in this tasting.
The fries themselves are the reason. They’re flavorful, crispy, and well-seasoned. When paired with crumbles of bacon, melted cheese, and ranch, the result was forkful after forkful of decadent indulgent flavors that remained crispy even though they were the very first order I picked up in my roundup.
Ironically, I think Rally’s bacon was easily the worst. Still, bacon is bacon — smokey, still sweet, and delicious even in the worst of times.
The Bottom Line:
Hands down our top choice. Rally’s Fully Loaded Fries are the best cheese fries in all of fast food.
Find your nearest Rally’s here.
