The Problem With These Breakfast Dishes From Chick-Fil-A Are Pretty Obvious

Food ordering regret. Most likely all of us have suffered from this condition at some point. It's that time you ordered a New York Strip at a sketchy dive bar. Or you ordered the "fish of the day" at a traditional steakhouse. Maybe, paralyzed by indecision, you ordered salad at a restaurant famous for everything but salad. Hey, mistakes happen. But, sometimes, food ordering regret is absolutely avoidable. You just need to have a clear understanding of the restaurant you're visiting, what it's known for, and what it traditionally does best. That doesn't mean everything else will suck, but it does mean you've made yourself more vulnerable to food-ordering regret.

When it comes to Chick-fil-A, one of the highest-revenue fast food chains in the U.S., it's incredibly easy to avoid regret when ordering from their breakfast menu. Here's your tip: If it doesn't include chicken, you're probably better off avoiding it. That's exactly what we found when we ranked Chick-fil-A's entire breakfast menu from worst to best. Basically, it's called "Chick-fil-A" for a reason, not because of its sausage and fruit cup. 

Let's tell you our four favorite Chick-fil-A breakfast items and see if you notice a trend: Starting at four — the chick-n-minis, followed by the chicken, egg, and cheese muffin in third place, then the traditional Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit as runner-up, and our overall favorite breakfast menu item is the chicken, egg, and cheese biscuit. You just can't go wrong at this fast food chain with some sort of combination of chicken, biscuit, and tasty breakfast accompaniments.

That's not to say there aren't other decent non-chicken options at Chick-fil-A. The bacon, egg, and cheese with biscuit or muffin are both solid choices. The berry parfait and hash browns aren't bad add-ons. Even the egg white grill and hash brown scramble burrito (sub in chicken for any other protein) stand on their own as decent options. But based on our reviews, the items we would avoid ordering altogether at Chick-fil-A? Anything with sausage.

The sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, the sausage, egg, and cheese muffin, and the hash brown scramble bowl all had one thing in common: tough, difficult-to-chew sausage patties. The biscuit is the one savior here, because the muffin is tough and brittle as well. The hash brown scramble bowl also includes the notoriously tough sausage, and it seems more like a bunch of ingredients thrown together than an actual cohesive breakfast bowl. And the fruit cup? It's fine — with fresh strawberries, blueberries, orange slices, and apples — but it's ridiculously overpriced at $3 to $4, depending on size.

It's really difficult to criticize Chick-fil-A for anything. The chain does so many things right with its food that it can be shocking when one item doesn't meet your expectations. All that considered, if you're heading to Chick-fil-A for breakfast, make sure you arrive before 10:30 a.m. and stick with the chicken. And, no matter what you choose, we'd advise you to avoid those tough sausage patties.