We Tried And Ranked 8 Popular Fast Food Fried Chicken Chains

My family hails from Kentucky, so fried chicken was a frequent centerpiece on our dinner table. And though it's almost always great, it can sometimes go horribly wrong, whether from overcooking, over- or under-seasoning, or a too-low oil temperature that makes the breading greasy instead of crisp.

The phrase "fried chicken" usually calls to mind an image of whole, bone-in pieces, but it encompasses so much more than that. Bone-in, tenders, sandwiches, or wings — I've had (and loved) it all. So, I set out to try all the fast food restaurants I could think of that serve fried chicken in its many forms. I tried a few familiar favorites and a few new-to-me places, and admittedly, they all had, at the very least, pretty good chicken. What really set them apart, I found, had nothing to do with the chicken at all, but rather the quality and variety of the sides, and the overall value of the meals. Keep reading to find out if your favorite chicken chain made the list.

It's been years since I've had Chick-fil-A chicken, and I thought I remembered loving it, but apparently, I was mistaken. The chicken itself was pretty good, but while the breading was fantastically crunchy, it had a slight sweetness that I didn't love. I can't quite put my finger on what exactly was wrong with it — after all, to upgrade homemade fried chicken, I drizzle some honey over it while it's still smoking hot, so the problem can't be sweetness in general — but it just wasn't enjoyable to eat.

The three-piece Chick-n-Strips combo comes with fries — no options there — and those were even more disappointing. Though I love the waffle fry texture, the flavor was horribly bland with almost no salt at all. Even the Chick-fil-A sauce was a bummer. It may be Chowhound's favorite Chick-fil-A sauce, but to me, it tastes like they just dumped every sauce they had into a bucket and mixed it all up. As it turns out, this isn't too far from the truth, since Chick-fil-A sauce, while a tightly-held secret, is allegedly a mix of mayo, mustard, barbecue sauce, and sugar.

Worst of all, though, was the value. The combo had more fries than chicken, and still cost $7.24. Even if I'd enjoyed everything in it, I'd have thought it was too much to pay for a relatively small amount of food, but the price is extra offensive considering how disappointing it was. This one's a hard pass for me.

I'd never even heard of Huey Magoo's until I started researching for this article. Turns out it's a pretty large chain in the eastern U.S. with several locations near me. With Cane's being the only chicken tender restaurant I'd ever tried, I expected Huey Magoo's to be similar, and a look at the menu initially confirmed this assumption — chicken tenders, Texas toast, and a house dipping sauce.

Unfortunately, despite calling itself "the filet mignon of chicken," Huey Magoo's was a let-down. Though the chicken tenders were well-seasoned with plenty of pepper, they were disappointingly small. The dipping sauce was also unpleasant. I was offered a choice of sauces, which I didn't expect, so I went with Parmesan garlic, since that's what I ordered on my Wingstop tenders. What I got tasted more like Italian dressing. Even the toast was just ... sad. It was definitely toasted, but so lightly that the outside wasn't even a little bit crisp, and it had no flavor, almost like it had been dry toasted rather than oiled or buttered. The fries were also boring old crinkle cut fries, which seem to be the standard at chicken tender restaurants.

On the bright side, I was able to get the toast and fries in a two-piece kids' meal for $6.49, which wouldn't have been a terrible deal if I'd liked everything, since most chicken tender kids' meals only include fries. But since I wasn't interested in the fries or bread beyond the first bite, it ended up being pretty wimpy value for two tenders.

KFC was one of the first fried chicken restaurants I ever went to, so it sort of shaped the way I look at fried chicken everywhere. You would think, then, that KFC would be my favorite fast-food fried chicken restaurant. I thought so, too, but apparently, my palate has evolved since childhood, and KFC simply doesn't hold up.

I ordered the two-piece Taste of KFC deal, which comes with one thigh and one drumstick, plus mashed potatoes and gravy and a biscuit. The extra crispy breading is, indeed, extra crispy, and while I know there are 11 top-secret herbs and spices in it, the only one I could taste was salt — and a lot of it. The chicken itself was perfectly tender and juicy, though.

The biscuit was killer, especially with butter and honey, but the mashed potatoes and gravy were just okay. The potatoes were a little too smooth for my liking, which makes sense — after all, KFC uses instant potato flakes, not real, whole potatoes, to make the mash. Sides like coleslaw, corn, macaroni and cheese, and fries are also available. If I'd had the choice, I would have gone with the coleslaw, which I know is excellent, but the Taste of KFC deal locked me into mashed potatoes.

As for the value, for $5.00, the Taste of KFC deal — the least expensive meal of all the restaurants I tried — is certainly hard to beat. It's worth noting, however, that the regular two-piece chicken meal includes one side — your choice — and a drink, but it costs $8.49.

I had never tried Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken before writing this article, but if you were to blindfold me and put one plate of KFC chicken and one plate of Lee's chicken in front of me right now, I'm not sure I could tell you which was which. Lee's was very similar to KFC in flavor, texture, and quality. The breading was crispy and way too salty, but the chicken itself was delicious. I did notice that the chicken pieces were smaller than KFC's, though whether that's a bad thing (as in, less value) or a good thing (as in, smaller chickens usually mean better quality meat) is up for debate.

The Lee's two-piece classic meal comes with two sides, and you get to choose both. The mashed potatoes, like KFC's, were too smooth, but the gravy itself had much more chicken flavor, which I appreciated, and the coleslaw was creamy and tangy, just the way I like it. Unfortunately, the biscuit was way too salty and very dry, as though it had been sitting for hours before being served.

The Lee's meal cost $7.99, nearly $3.00 more than KFC's two-piece Taste of KFC deal, which lines up almost perfectly with the $2.49 price tag for the additional coleslaw, so the value is roughly equal there. The main advantage Lee's has over KFC is that Lee's gives you a choice of two sides in its regular two-piece meal, while KFC's comparable combo deal only has one option — mashed potatoes and gravy.

This was my first time trying Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen chicken, and while it was good, I was expecting a whole lot more flavor from the beef tallow-fried chicken. Don't get me wrong — it was delicious. The meat was super juicy, the breading was crisp, and it wasn't overly salty. I just expected to taste more spices in the breading. Not heat, necessarily — spicy chicken was a separate option that I didn't choose — but flavor.

The two-piece combo was $9.99, which is a little higher than most of the classic fast-food chicken places I tried. While it does include a drink, it only comes with one side and a biscuit, so the value is a little off. For my side, I chose the coleslaw, which was the most unique slaw out of all the ones I tasted. Though I'm not certain which seasonings Popeyes uses in its slaw, the dressing had a reddish tint that suggested paprika or maybe a bit of cayenne, though there wasn't any heat to it. The biggest surprise, though, was the chopped pickles in the slaw. It was a totally unexpected flavor, but after a couple of bites, I had to admit that it worked.

Though the chicken wasn't as tasty as I expected and the price was a bit high, I have to give Popeyes bonus points for the slaw and the uniqueness of its sides overall. Other available options include homestyle mac and cheese, red beans and rice, cajun fries, and mashed potatoes with cajun gravy, all of which looked phenomenal. I'll definitely be going back to try more of those.

When the first Raising Cane's opened in my area, I was immediately obsessed, so I wasn't at all surprised to find that I still loved it almost as much as I used to. I got the three-finger combo, which comes with fries, bread, and a fountain beverage for $9.67 — definitely more expensive than I remember, and I think a bit pricey for what you get.

The chicken tenders were large and juicy, and the breading was deliciously crispy and flaky. They were fantastic on their own, but the sauce — a blend of mayo, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce — really sets them apart from other restaurants. The Texas toast was also insanely good — lightly toasted (but noticeably crispy) on the outside, while nice and fluffy on the inside. I used it to swipe up the last bits of leftover Cane's sauce from the bottom of the little plastic cup.

My only real complaint is the fries. They were just your basic crinkle cut fries — nothing I couldn't get frozen from Kroger. They seemed out of place next to the flavorful chicken, bread, and sauce, and after paying nearly $10 for the meal, it seemed wrong to have an entire side that I wasn't interested in eating. I wish the combo had come with coleslaw instead of fries, but for that, I would have had to upgrade to the Box Combo for almost $2 more — which is a fair price increase for an additional tender and extra side, but still doesn't make up for the fact that the lowest-priced combo restricts you to bland, boring crinkle cut fries.

I've had Wingstop's boneless wings a few times in my life, and I was never particularly thrilled with them. They always seemed stringy and dry to me. And since I'd tried a couple of chicken tender restaurants for this article, I decided to go for Wingstop's sauced tenders instead. I can confidently say that they were more impressive than the boneless wings, and though the meat itself was a little bit stringy, the larger tenders definitely had a better overall texture than the Wingstop wings.

Wingstop's chicken tenders, unlike places like Cane's and Huey Magoo's, come sauced, and it's got a huge list of over a dozen flavors to choose from. I went with my universal favorite — garlic Parmesan — and it was absolutely delicious on the crispy breading. The fries were also nice and thick with plenty of flavor — they reminded me of my all-time favorite Penn Station fries — and the generous dusting of seasoning salt was shockingly good. There's a little more sugar in it than I would have liked, but I enjoyed the complexity of the flavor.

The three-piece tender combo cost me $10.17, including a fountain beverage, but somehow I ended up with four tenders in my box, and I enjoyed every single bite, along with the fries. Overall, based on the amount of food and its quality, plus the huge number of flavors to choose from, I have to rate Wingstop's tenders as the best I tried — but it was just barely edged out of first place by my favorite fried chicken that I tasted for this article.

The energy inside Church's had a similar vibe to a cafeteria-style restaurant called Richie's that I used to go to when I was in college in Cincinnati. The cooks in the back called the woman at the register "mama," and she called me "baby" at least three times in the five minutes it took to get my order. Church's service felt like going home and was, by far, the best I had at any of the restaurants on this list.

Church's food has a homestyle vibe, too. The fried chicken had a crispy breading that was just the right thickness, and the mashed potatoes tasted like my great-grandma had spent 45 minutes mashing them by hand. They came with a deliciously meaty brown gravy. Other available sides include fries, fried okra, coleslaw, mac and cheese, and buttered corn. I was tempted by the okra — Church's is the only restaurant I tried that offers it — but decided to go with the mashed potatoes in hopes that at least one restaurant would have some good ones. I'm glad I did, but don't worry, okra — I'll be back for you.

And the biscuit — oh, the biscuit. My great-grandma also made biscuits like Church's — she called them "ugly biscuits" on account of their lumpy texture, in contrast to the flat-top biscuits most chicken restaurants serve. The Church's biscuit had a shiny glaze of honey and butter, and the texture was fluffy, warm, and moist. I'd buy a whole bucket of these biscuits if I could. The two-piece combo, with a choice of side and a biscuit, plus a fountain drink, cost me $8.99, which is roughly the same as most of the restaurants I tried for this article. But the flavor, service, and quality of the food make it an exceptional deal.

I tried comparable meals from eight different restaurants specializing in classic bone-in fried chicken, tenders, and chicken wings, choosing the least expensive combo meal available. I rated each based on the chicken itself, as well as overall quality, side selection, and vibes. I also tried to select similar sides and sauces — where I had a choice — to compare them between restaurants, like mashed potatoes from KFC and Church's, coleslaw from Popeyes and Lee's, Parmesan garlic sauce from Huey Magoo's and Wingstop, etc.