15 Fast Food Chicken Wings, Ranked Worst To Best

Non-brand name football season is back, baby! And that means one thing: billionaires making taxpayers pay for private stadium — wait, no: fried chicken wings! Great wings are a lot of work to make, and you're busy cheering for {Athlete Embroiled in Scandal} to lead {Problematic Team Name} to [Unlicensed Big Game Name Redacted], so to save you research, I ate chicken wings at nationwide take-out spots. This guide guarantees you'll get wings worth your time and dollar so you can focus on the fandom.

The rules for this pre-season championship: If your favorite fried chicken chain doesn't sell wings, it's disqualified. For even footing, I tried the wings plain, even if they're typically sold sauced. Pro tip: Don't make it weird by asking the cashier, "Can I have my wings naked?" Got it? Game on.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

Although Little Caesar's makes one of the better big-chain pizzas, they serve the most disappointing wings. As far as I can tell, they're not freshly made but kept in a heat chamber. This gives them a dark Maillard brown color, which looks richer than they taste.

Despite low heat, they're not soft. Perhaps they've been seasoned with something that makes them look darker than they are, or my batch never had time for tougher tissue breakdown. While the flavor wasn't horrible, their appealing color belied tough meat and skin like chewing gum. On top of that, these were the coldest wings I ate, despite not even being the first batch bought on that weeknight's chicken run. They were room temperature, while the Domino's I'd bought 15 minutes earlier remained hot. To be honest these were gross through and through.

And I'm not counting sauces against a brand, but the buffalo ranch at Little Caesars was bottom-rung. Ugh. Its pizza may be Augustus, but these wings are pure Nero.

Aw, B-double-dub, you were supposed to be the chosen one! It's your whole brand! What a miss these dried-out wings were. The skin was crisp-ish but not crunchy, and the rubbery kind of chewy: another victim of that heat lamp life is my bet. They were dry enough to stick to the teeth, but the meat itself was nevertheless impressively moist, not stringy or chalky.

Buffalo Wild Wings gives you very welcome celery and carrots on the side like your local bar, and boy, do they beat the chicken for freshness. While the taste was good, it was also minimal. These wings were decidedly not wild. There was no detectable seasoning beyond salt. Again, no points lost in the sauce sideline, but it's obvious these wings want to be sauced. Ordering them plain is a losing bet, yet the orange chicken sauce I pulled on the side was cloying and did nothing to redeem the meat. If you go here, stick to buffalo sauce and pray for better results. Maybe it's different at the fast-casual, but the GO takeout is far short of "worth your money" territory. 

Papa John's wings looked like they'd taste so much better, but displayed the same browning minus flavor that Little Caesar's sells. It's essentially the same wing, although these had more actual chicken flavor and were not so tough. They're the less disappointing version of what's barely worth documenting. Points for being meaty will take you places, though.

These pizza chains are throwing me for a loop. There's no correlation between pizza quality and chicken worthiness. All I can tell you is that as wings go, there's no redemptive trashy satisfaction here, as one might find dipping a bizarrely chewy pizza crust into a golden ramekin of garlicky not-butter oil. Papa John's is the first "not bad" but definitely not an order to get with your pizza delivery unless someone among your party is skipping carbs. And frankly, you can get better chain pizza that also makes superior wings.

I tried not to let my views of Domino's pizza color my expectations of these wings, but I will say they exceeded my fears. I thought, if anyone, Domino's would serve up the disappointment I got from Little Caesars. Nope, these aren't bad, though they're not good. They are pretty much the best you can hope for from the chain whose pizza drastically improves when served cold for breakfast the next morning.

An interesting smoky note is about the limit of the skin's powers, with some garlic and maybe pepper hiding in the meat; it's not super strong, but it's interesting enough that you'd like to see it applied to a better cooked wing. Unfortunately, a gummy texture upsets the intrigue, and you're not going to detour for Domino's wings tonight. Even so, at least you can eat these plain and count on flavor to carry the weight that texture can't lift. I'll say this: Domino's makes better chicken wings than Domino's makes pizza.

Your local Checkers may be called Rally's in a Hardee's/Carl's Jr. situation, but they're essentially the same. Now, here's some real nice crispiness for fast-food wings. Domino's could learn a thing or two about texture from this batch of bird limbs. But so, too, could Checkers learn from Domino's and put a little more flavor into these. Combined, they'd produce a real contender. Still, crispy basic wings beat mushy, flavorful ones. And remember, I'm eating these plain. You're probably going to have some sauce on them to help the chicken shine. I don't mean to say there's no flavor here. It's just not rippling through the meat. You get a nice taste of the chicken itself, supplemented with a little salt and pepper. It's understated, but the more I eat it, the more I enjoy it for its own sake instead of a strong signature. Still, there are moister, more flavorful chicken than this.

Seriously? Pizza Hut serves the best fried chicken of the pizza chains? Pizza Hut? Well, maybe it makes sense. The folks at parent company Yum! Brands also make KFC, though Pizza Hut's unbreaded wings are quite different. I was full near bursting by the time I reached Pizza Hut, my sixth lunch of the day, yet I did not bemoan it. That says something.

These came out of the fryer mighty nice, without all the usual heartburn and worse that I've found consuming Pizza Hut's actual pizza: No weird additives, just fresh wings, crispy skin, surprisingly good flavor, despite coming across as the very definition of the word plain. Hey, it's what I ordered, and they did it well. In fact, aside from the addictive eleven herbs and spices, there's a strong case to be made that Pizza Hut makes better wings unbreaded than sister brand KFC does with a delicious, deep-fried shell.

I expected this to land either better or worse. KFC is much of America's first, or definitive, idea of what fried chicken should be, but most of the Yum! Brands dynasty leaves me clutching my guts. (Note: This has never stopped me from making my annual pilgrimage to Taco Bell.) So am I a KFC snob, or am I honest about what exciting dinner looked like growing up in 1980s New England? Turns out KFC and I have both grown, and our affection for one another is that of two exes who are now different people but still fond in memory. KFC is firmly in the middle with no strong reaction either way.

The good: the Colonel still excels at seasoning. The flavor pervades both the meat and the breading itself, making a nice taste that hits the spot. The idiosyncratic: Love it or hate it, the thinner breading is crumbly and crumby both. While it can't match the shatteringly crispy shell of so many others on this list, it offers its own unique attractions. The bad: Being the greasiest on this list could be a tasty positive, but the oil's sourness feels like too high an arterial price. With either end of the wing rubbery, it's nice to revisit the taste affair, but a relationship's doomed.

Here comes the first real recommended stop! bb.q has a cafeteria system where you pick your scorching-hot chicken box. But I couldn't find the combination of Golden Original with wings, only a half chicken. For fairness, I picked the Spicy Original Plain, which has hotter seasoning but still no sauce. Given at least one other competitor is putting ghost pepper in its marinade and/or dry rub and/or breading, this seemed allowable.

Eat wings with me and I'll annoy you with a test of well-cooked cartilage: A small rotation of the radius or ulna should slide bone out from obstructing meat. While bb.q Chicken passes that trial, its victory is in mitigating heat lamp damage on crispiness and moisture. Its thick Korean crust was shaggier and crunchier than Bonchon, closer to American breading. If you hunt for heat, bb.q's chewy meat is the spiciest plain wing tested. No bite is brutal; we're not sampling Nashville hot chicken here, but it will aggregate into intense piquancy. Points for beating the challenges of serving grab-and-go chicken, but bb.q's not even the best Korean fried chicken on the block of Koreatown where I ate it.

I had this pegged for an easy gold medal. Everyone knows Korean fried chicken is the best, and Bonchon does it better than anyone. But here's what happened. I sat down for my most anticipated stop of the article was reunited with bubbly, thick crust quite a lot like an egg roll wrapper. It shattered fondly as I bit in.

However, it quickly proved to be unseasoned. Bonchon is designed for sauce. It's meant to complement finishing glazes like soy garlic and Korean BBQ. The chicken was fresh with good consistency: tender but not overdone. The bones, upon cooling, slid right out of tender but coherent meat. But it was never designed to be eaten plain. If you add sauce, Bonchon is right back up top. Its sauces beat Wingstop's, but this is not kickoff at Saucelife Stadium in Flavortown. This is Naked Arena in Plainfield. And here, Bonchon faced tough odds without its starting lineup, sliding from second place to an astonishing seventh.

Popeyes beats KFC at its own game with crustily breaded and beautifully seasoned chicken. Both have a spicy heat. Both have a resilient breading that's as good spongey as it is crunchy. And Popeyes tends to win out, point over point.

Popeyes sent me sample wings, and even after a crosstown trip, these wings placed well. They were pleasingly tender to a strange fault; though not falling apart, they lay on the edge of gumminess. Despite that, a good, crisp, and spicy shell of breading convinced me they hadn't steamed themselves out of their intended presentation. Moist and flavorful, they passed the "turn the key" bone test with a B+ after a little resistance from the cartilage. And we are now solidly in the realm of chicken; I would gobble the cluck out of it without any sauce. Popeyes is great on its own while also taking well to any manner of sauces.

I cannot believe I am typing these words, but plain Wingstop is one of the best chicken wings out there. Wingstop's strong sauces require a resilient meat base across its extensive flavors list. Caveat: It's hard to imagine Wingstop winning this competition with sauce on it, even though it's great at sauces, which is its whole marketing angle. (Wingstop's menu doesn't mention plain wings, but you can request no sauce.) Even so, I'm agog that it's landing ahead of Popeyes and Bonchon — Bonchon! — in the plain game.

They look dried out, right? They are not! Simultaneously, these might be the least greasy wings I tried, with an excellent crispy baked quality. While they could use a touch more salt, I imagine that usually comes from the sauce. Still, the chicken flavor comes through brilliantly. After trying every single Wingstop sauce, I'm impressed that I'd put its plain wings in its own internal top five.

In fact, they might place higher, but man, Wingstop is pricy. At 16 bucks for ten wings, they had better be this good. I didn't stress price as a factor, but if it costs so much, it hurts, and the wings had better soothe the pain.

The quietly ubiquitous chain is not breaded but fried naked to crispy glory. Atomic Wings specializes in the sauces, slinging thirty or so at any time, with a lot of unofficial combos thanks to customers experimenting. Try the loco garlic parm, for instance.

Even so, the chicken shines plain. I tried these in person at one of the Brooklyn locations, where Mo, the manager, enumerated Atomic's process: locally sourced chicken, never frozen, is cleaned with water and lemon juice, brined for 24 hours, then steamed to perfection. It only reaches the fryer when you order it, at which point you will complement, rather than cover, all that hard work with the sauce of your choice. I tried a few sauces just to see if we had a Wingstop effect of covering up some of that achievement and found it paired well without getting too sweet or salty. A win.

This was the last place I tried overall and the seventh of the day, so I should have been exhausted by fried chicken. Yet the king of Coney Island pierced my fatigue with wings far better than a micro-food court should ever promise to do. Its crispy skin was sumptuous, yielding a very chickeny under-flavor — maybe the truest I'd tried. While I ate a lot of flavorful plain wings that didn't need sauce, I would call Nathan's the batch that wanted sauce the least. It might have detracted from how good these were. Nathan's juicy wings don't look fresh but are fried on demand. Countering the heat lamp failures, we have evidence that fried chicken peaks fresh out of the fryer, even if it weathers a heat lamp well.

If you just want the pure chicken experience, Nathan's will surprise you. I loved it. I guess I live at America's second sketchiest beach now. Work on your chicken game, Myrtle Beach.

Krispy Krunchy Chicken is more ubiquitous as a "license us" franchise than its own chain locations, likelier found at gas stations, delis, and bodegas. Years back, Thrillist ran a piece calling this secretly the best in the country, and I immediately sought it. It was merely fine. But I returned now for the good of the humanities. Turns out it is phenomenal, but there's a catch.

As I walked up to the deli counter, the guy working it emptied a giant tray of fresh chicken atop the few pieces I'd been about to claim. These pieces were still bouncing as I placed my order, so less than two minutes after it had exited the fryer, I was feasting on the absolute best fried chicken.

So why isn't this the top pick? Because the quality decay is steep. When it's fresh out of the oven, it will steam itself soft after a few blocks. When it's not, it becomes unremarkable under the heat lamp. But if you can nab a fresh batch straight away, it's transcendent. Against painfully pricy chains serving straight from the fryer, Krispy Krunchy wins a fair fight in a first-round knockout. At its best, it's my uncontested favorite that should have won. Alas, compared to wings that both travel and sit tight better, Krispy Krunchy is volatile timing.

Texas recently rebranded itself as Tex's, but the chicken remains great as ever. This is one of the few explicitly halal spots on our list, alongside fellow frontrunner Atomic Wings.  Tex's serves extraordinarily good breading, very nearly the best. It's crisp and crunchy to an extent, illustrative of the difference between those adjectives. It shatters beautifully on biting. It's a velvet glove in an iron gauntlet that serves up spice, even if without hot sauce. It burns peppery, tingling the tongue. But bring your own sriracha because Tex's pale imitation of Tabasco adds nothing.

Served to order, Tex's chicken is not greasy, a quality so prevalent in this article I was inclined to forego it in scoring these wings. The briny seasoning uplifts a clean meatiness. While it never dominates a single category, Tex's comes in a tight second in all of them to scoop the win by TKO. It wasn't my biggest "Wow!" but it is, point by point, a unified wing that pricier chickens never achieved. What an upset!

To keep everything comparable, I ate wings plain without sauce, evaluating their meat, seasoning, skin, and, if present, breading. I tasted chains both immediately and at home to assess both fryer-fresh and real-meal conditions. If I was offered sauce on the side, I took it, but didn't weigh it in rankings. While I also ate drumettes and tips, I judged entries primarily on flats (A.K.A. wingettes) from the middle.

Most of these entries were paid for by Tasting Table, with a couple of complimentary tastings from chains that responded to our press inquiries. Even so, I treated them all as if I'd paid out of pocket to consider price and value alongside chicken of comparable qualities. In the end, my biggest criteria were how much I wanted to go back. Second, how well would it make it home for kickoff, whether picked up or delivered?