Few things in fast food hit like the perfect breakfast sandwich. When else in the day can you eat such an indulgent salt-heavy carb-bomb guilt-free? The beautiful thing about a breakfast sandwich is that no matter how indulgent, you can partake knowing you have the whole day to burn it off. That’s part of the reason breakfast as a whole is all about going HAM (it’s also the best time of the day to eat ham), it’s a reward for pulling yourself out of bed, getting ready, and wading out into the world (and traffic), and we want you to only have the very best.
That’s why we set out to rank the absolute best breakfast sandwiches in fast food right now. We have one rule here: we’re only shouting out one sandwich from each of our favorite fast food restaurants. That’s might leave a lot of really great sandwiches off this ranking, but if you agree with our take on a given sandwich, use that as an invitation to further explore that restaurant’s menu.
Having said that, this is our definitive list. These are the sandwiches that are so delicious, they’re actually worth getting out of bed over. Let’s eat.
11. Subway — Bacon, Egg & Cheese Wrap
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
Do we really need to say anything about this thing? Just look at it, you can tell it’s awful. But by all means, if you’re a Subway fan, go for it, just know that we ate it so that you didn’t have to.
The fried egg in this thing is flavorless, offering little more than a webby dry texture. The bacon is thin, floppy, and sickeningly sweet, and the cheese looks and tastes like melted plastic. Having said that, we like that you’re able to add and additional ingredients Subway has on hand, like bell peppers or spinach, which sort of turns this thing into an omelet, but at that point, you’re probably better off just ordering a sandwich.
The Bottom Line:
A big skip.
10. Sonic — Sausage Breakfast Toaster
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
Sonic’s Sausage Breakfast Toaster is not our go-to breakfast order at Sonic. We much rather order one of Sonic’s many very delicious breakfast burritos, but including a burrito on this list of fast food sandwiches would be wrong, so here we are, stuck with the Sausage Breakfast Toaster.
This sandwich is just fine; it features a thick, dry, folded egg, a thin patty of sausage, and American cheese sandwiched between two thick slices of Texas toast. Sounds great right? Unfortunately, none of the ingredients really come together. The bread is often stale and stiff and acts as a giant sponge to soak up all the grease, making the dominant tasting note of this sandwich oil. It tastes cheap.
The only thing it really has going for it is the sausage, which has a nice peppery and meaty flavor, but you can barely taste it under the bread. If this sandwich was a bit meatier, it would taste a lot better.
The Bottom Line:
Just order one of Sonic’s breakfast burritos instead.
9. Starbucks — Double-Smoked Bacon, Cheddar & Egg Sandwich
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
The last time we ranked breakfast sandwiches, we included Starbucks’ Bacon, Gouda & Edd Sandwich, and ranked the sandwich last, saying “It’s actually mind-blowing how bad Starbucks’ breakfast sandwiches are.” That resulted in a lot of feedback from Starbucks fans telling me I “had to try” The Double-Smoked Bacon, Cheddar, and Egg Sandwich. Well we’ve tried it, and I’ll give it to Starbucks fans — they’re right, this sandwich is much better.
But is it a good sandwich? I don’t think so. Sure, I’d order it at an airport, or if I’m at Starbucks and don’t have time to stop somewhere else before work, but I’d never willingly wake up just to eat this sandwich.
Inside a croissant bun sits a fried egg, bacon, and a slice of cheddar. The sandwich has a nice smokey flavor, but its individual parts taste cheap. The egg is bone dry, the bacon looks crispy but tastes microwaved, and the cheese hardly melts and mostly tastes of salt. I think my favorite part of this sandwich is the bread, which is airy and buttery with a slight sweetness to it, but when the bread is the highlight, you’ve got a problem.
The Bottom Line:
Quite possibly Starbucks’ best breakfast sandwich, but that isn’t saying much. Order it if you don’t have time to go anywhere else.
8. Burger King — Fully Loaded Croissan’wich
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
In my years of covering Burger King, I’ve come to taste most, if not all, of its very extensive menu, including the over 10 breakfast sandwiches they have. I’ve found that Burger King has a lot of really great ideas, but rarely executes them very well. But the Fully Loaded Croissan’wich is one of the few things BK is getting right.
The build on this thing is admirable; you’ve got bacon, sweet and salty Black Forest ham, melted American cheese, a thick and meaty sausage patty, and a folded egg that looks like a blanket served atop a flaky, buttery croissant bun. Biting into the sandwich, you’re greeted with a medley of smokey, sweet, salty, and savory flavors with a nice buttery finish.
But, there are better sandwiches out there. So order this if Burger King is the most convenient drive-thru for you to hit, but by no means should you wake up just to eat this sandwich.
The Bottom Line:
Layers of sweet, salty, and smokey meats with a wonderfully crispy texture and a buttery finish. Good, but far from the best.
7. Dunkin — Sourdough Breakfast Sandwich
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
Dunkin’ wants so badly to be your local coffee/bagel shop. Unfortunately, while all their breakfast food — and coffee — looks the part, it doesn’t quite reach the same level.
The Sourdough Breakfast Sandwich is Dunkin’s very best breakfast sandwich, but it’s far from perfect. The sandwich features two eggs that, get this, actually taste like eggs and not just a weird dry texture like all the stuff ranking lower, five pieces of crispy smokey bacon, and a layer of sharp melted white cheddar served on warm sourdough toast.
The bread isn’t real sourdough, it’s a lot softer and easier to chew through, but it still has that characteristic tang that pairs nicely with the other ingredients.
The Bottom Line:
Yo Starbucks, this is how a coffee chain makes a delicious breakfast sandwich. However, your local bagel shop probably does it better.
6. Panera — Chipotle Chicken, Scrambled Egg & Avocado on Ciabatta
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
Panera’s Chipotle Chicken, Scrambled Egg & Avocado has an interesting build. The sandwich features Peppadew peppers, salt and pepper, cilantro, gouda cheese, Chipotle aioli, smoked chicken, scrambled eggs, and avocado, on an artisan ciabatta bread. It should be amazing, but for some reason it comes across as a bit flavorless, despite all its ingredients.
The chicken is bland, the egg is just fine, and the chipotle aioli is sour and doesn’t provide any heat. That leaves the avocado — which is never ripe — peppers, cilantro, gouda, and bread to do all the work. Overall, this sandwich looks and sounds better than it actually tastes.
We’d say it’s solidly good, but not great.
The Bottom Line:
Not bad by any means, but given all the fresh and fancy ingredients, we expected way more.
5. Jack in the Box — Loaded Breakfast Sandwich
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
Jack in the Box is one of the few fast food chains that serves all-day breakfast, and that’s probably because most of the restaurant’s best menu items are from its breakfast menu. Our favorite is the Loaded Breakfast Sandwich, which features a dense, chewy, subtly sour sourdough-style bread bun with a layer of smokey bacon, grilled ham, a freshly fried egg, a double dose of cheese, and a pepper-forward sausage patty.
Altogether these smokey, savory flavors combine for a damn good breakfast sandwich. We’d like to give a special shoutout to the fact that JiB grills its ham, giving it a nice toasty flavor and a seared edge — something that we wish more fast food chains would do.
The Bottom Line:
Smokey, sweet, savory — Jack in the Box’s Loaded Breakfast Sandwich is a greatest hits sandwich of your favorite breakfast flavors.
4. Chick-fil-a — Spicy Chicken Biscuit
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
I want to rank this one higher because it’s delicious, but its bare-bones build makes it come across as a bit boring. Ultimately, whether or not you like this one is going to come down to how much you like Chick-fil-A’s chicken.
The biscuit is perfect — it’s soft and buttery with a pinch of salt and works very nicely with the spicy cayenne pepper heavy flavor of the chicken breast filet. each bite is sweet, crunchy, and buttery with a nice kick of heat on the backend.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t feel like this sandwich was missing something. Still, I’ve never had one of these and been disappointed in the flavor.
The Bottom Line:
A delicious and tasty breakfast sandwich, but a little bare bones and boring. It almost feels like you need two of these to be truly satisfied, yet two is too many.
3. McDonald’s — Sausage McMuffin with Egg & Cheese
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin with Egg & Cheese is perhaps the most famous breakfast sandwich in all of fast food. If someone says “do you want fast food for breakfast?” your mind probably conjures up this sandwich, and there is a reason for that. This sandwich is pretty damn delicious.
The sausage is savory and meaty, with a strong black pepper prominence. The cheese adds the perfect salty touch and brings in a bit of much-needed moisture. The fried egg is… fine. It’s soft and serves as a great counterbalance to the toasty English muffin bun. That bun is legendary – it’s craggy, toasted to perfect, and works as the perfect sponge for all the flavors to soak into.
You can’t go wrong with this sandwich, but it’s not our favorite.
The Bottom Line:
A near-perfect breakfast sandwich. But you can do better!
2. Carl’s Jr. — The Breakfast Burger
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
When you think staple breakfast meats, sausage, bacon, and maybe ham probably come to mind. But who says those have to be the standard? Some people want to start off their day with a big juicy flame-grilled burger, and that’s okay!
The Breakfast Burger is just that. A charbroiled burger topped with crispy mini hashbrowns, bacon, a folded freshly fried egg, American cheese, and a whole lot of ketchup.
Each bite is a wonderful medley of meaty, savory, moist, sweet, salty, crispy, and smokey flavors. That’s a lot of flavors for a single sandwich! As delicious as this sandwich is though, it’s not our absolute favorite.
The Bottom Line:
If you want your breakfast sandwich big, indulgent, and as satisfying as anything you could order at lunch, the Breakfast Burger is for you. This sandwich makes the case for the hamburger patty as a new breakfast staple.
1. Wendy’s — Bacon, Egg & Cheese Muffin
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
Before we dive into what makes this deceptively simple sandwich so good, we’d like to give a special shout-out to the Breakfast Baconator. That sandwich is almost neck and neck with this one; it’s greasy, indulgent, and full of flavor. If that’s the vibe you’re after, you’re going to love the Breakfast Baconator, but ultimately, we’re bigger fans of the Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Muffin.
A large part of what makes this sandwich so great is the bacon. It’s smokey, thick, crunchy, and oven-baked in-restaurant every morning, resulting in perfectly rendered full-flavor bacon. This stuff tastes straight-up homemade and probably better than the bacon you cook yourself (unless you’ve got skills).
Add to the delicious bacon a freshly fried egg, melted American cheese, and a toasted browned butter English muffin, and you have the perfect breakfast sandwich — crunchy, textural, savory, buttery, and smokey with a bit of sweetness on the aftertaste that pulls you in for more.
Sure, it’s not as indulgent as Carl’s Jr’s Breakfast Burger, or as iconic as McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin, but every ingredient feels well thought out and works in harmony with one another.
The Bottom Line:
A sandwich worth waking up early for. The Wendy’s Bacon, Egg & Cheese Muffin offers the absolute perfect breakfast bite, and because of that, it’s the one true fast food breakfast sandwich worth waking up for.
