I’ve never been the biggest fan of Chick-fil-A’s Waffle Fries. All in all, I think they’re just fine. They get the job done. They’re a worthy side to a Chick-fil-A’s Spicy Deluxe sandwich. In our comprehensive ranking of 36 different fast food french fries, we asked, “are Chick-fil-A’s Waffle Fries actually good or are they just novel?”
I’m convinced it’s the latter. Chick-fil-A’s Waffle Fries are beloved because they’re one of the few waffle-cut fries in fast food, and they’re natural, earthy, and adequately salted, which most fast food french fries aren’t. We ranked them 15th, sufficiently mid-tier.
Having said all that — I cannot for the life of me figure out who at Chick-fil-A is getting paid entirely too much money to come up with dumb ideas like suggesting the recipe be changed.
You may have heard buzzing in the last few weeks that Chick-fil-A’s new Waffle Fries are trash. If you cruise the Chick-fil-A Reddit board you’ll find countless, and I really do mean countless, threads about how much the new fries suck.
Which got us wondering: how bad are they? So we ordered up a fresh batch, at them on-site for the absolute best experience, and, well, we’ve got a lot of thoughts. Let’s dive in.
Chick-fil-A’s New Waffle Fries Review
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
So, what exactly is different about these new fries? Pea starch. Chick-fil-A states that this minor change “offers the same great taste while also making our Waffle Potato Fries stay crispier, longer.” And we can confirm that part of that is true.
For the entire duration of my meal, my fries stayed crispy. The once floppy waffle fries now have an audible crunch and a texture to them, but when it comes to the “same great taste,” we have to push back on that. Straight up, these fries don’t taste the same as they used to. That buttery, earthy flavor of the original is gone. Instead, these fries just taste like salt, or whatever else you put on them.
While the pea starch itself is flavorless, the coating significantly muddles the base flavor of the potato, resulting in something way more bland. Now granted, you can fix this by dipping your fries, or dressing them up in some black pepper (which I did halfway through my meal), but straight out of the bag? These things are a shadow of what they once were.
It’s a frustrating change because they’re not so different that it’s going to ruin your meal, we’re convinced people will get used to this change, but what’s annoying is they are so obviously inferior to the old recipe. What you gain in crispiness, you lose in overall flavor.
The Bottom Line:
If you dip your fries in sauce or dress them up in a lot of salt and pepper, you likely won’t notice much of a difference aside from a bit more crunch.
While we wouldn’t go as far as saying the new fries suck, they are a definite step down from the OG.