9 Wendy's Breakfast Menu Items, Ranked Worst To Best

Is there any easier solution to breakfast than running by the drive-thru of your favorite fast food joint? Even if you don't regularly enjoy fast food, we're willing to bet you've had a fast food breakfast at least a couple of times in your life, whether it was a road trip necessity or an I-don't-have-groceries emergency. It goes without saying that, though many fast food chains carry similar breakfast items (you'll regularly find some version of an English muffin or biscuit sandwich, for example), they'll vary in terms of quality. We've already compared and ranked fast food breakfast sandwiches — today, I decided to try a variety of Wendy's breakfast offerings to see how they stack up against one another. 

Spoiler alert: Unfortunately, none of Wendy's breakfast items blew me away, and I was downright disappointed by a few. Nevertheless, each got a fair chance at a ranking here. When ranking them, I took into account the item's balance of flavors and textures, as well as whether it felt like a substantially filling breakfast food. I'm no newbie to fast food breakfasts, but I don't think I'd ever had a Wendy's breakfast menu item before, so I was equally new to all the options I chose. My overall opinion? Wendy's breakfast is just fine, and though I hate to say it, I personally would prefer a breakfast from McDonald's.

If I could rank this sandwich below the bottom of my list, I would, and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that every element of this sandwich nauseated me. The smell of Wendy's maple bacon chicken croissant was horrific — a strange combination of sweet and stale bread and mild bacon that didn't make me the least excited to take a bite. Moreover, I wouldn't even have known it was purported to be on a croissant from looking at it, as the "croissant" is more reminiscent of a plain bun.

While a sweet and savory breakfast sandwich is normally a huge yes from me, Wendy's attempt at the creation was an absolute no in every aspect. First of all, the sandwich was sickeningly sweet, and it didn't even taste like maple. The "maple" flavor was horribly artificial, and though I enjoyed the syrup paired with Wendy's French toast sticks (which we'll get to late), this syrup tasted vastly different. The chicken was dry, tough, and under-seasoned, the bacon was flimsy and tough, and the "croissant" was dense and utterly flavorless. There weren't nearly enough other flavors on this sandwich to balance out the overly sweet fake maple flavor, which was unpleasant enough that I didn't have more than a single bite of this one.

Sorry, Wendy's, but this bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit immediately got docked a few points when I realized they'd forgotten to put the cheese on mine. Only then did I realize what a lifesaver cheese must be for this otherwise dry breakfast sandwich. While I certainly wouldn't call it the worst fast-food breakfast sandwich (for me, that honor goes to the aforementioned maple bacon chicken croissant), it's probably the worst biscuit sandwich I've had, and it left me pretty disappointed. 

Again, without the cheese, this sandwich was way too dry — to be honest, I found myself wondering how much cheese would have actually helped that issue. That being said, the best part of this sandwich was the relatively dry biscuit. It wasn't flaky, but it was light, soft, and well-flavored. Other than that, the elements of this sandwich weren't balanced at all, even without considering the fact that it lacked cheese. The egg patty was massive and overflowed off the biscuit, and the bacon just consisted of a few limp strips. Overall, I can't recommend this breakfast offering.

I thought for sure that Wendy's Cinnabon pull-apart would be an easy high scorer for the chain. After all, how could you possibly mess it up? Cinnamon dough pieces baked together and topped with a cream cheese frosting — the concept sounds hard to get wrong, and yet somehow Wendy's version fell woefully short. I can't downright call it bad, but I won't be ordering this pull-apart again. It's way more worth it to make the trip to Cinnabon for the real deal.

My first complaint with this breakfast dish is that the name is incredibly misleading. The Cinnabon pull-apart didn't pull apart at all — rather, all the pieces stuck together in one giant, sticky, frosting-covered mass. When I finally did manage to pull a piece off, I was confronted with dry, stale-tasting bread that didn't boast nearly enough cinnamon flavor to be compared to a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. The frosting was the only good thing about this pull-apart, but even that couldn't make me want to finish it; had the bread tasted more moist and fresh, I probably would have ranked this higher. 

Up next was my preferred choice of Wendy's sweeter breakfast offerings. Don't get me wrong, I still didn't love Wendy's French toast sticks (which were severely lacking in too many elements to rank any higher than sixth place). However, I probably still wouldn't call these the worst French toast sticks, even when held up to other reputable options. In fact, this is the only breakfast offering of Wendy's that I ended up finishing, but that had more to do with my sweet tooth than anything else.

The best quality of these French toast sticks was, by far, their texture. The outside is crispy while the inside is soft and spongy, a welcome departure from the dry Cinnabon pull-apart I'd just had. However, the French toast sticks fell flat when it came to flavor. I was expecting at least a hint of cinnamon in the sticks, but there was none to be found — instead, it tasted like a flavorless fried dough. On the plus side, the sticks were a good vehicle for the maple syrup, which is among the better fast-food maple syrups I've had. I also appreciated the size of the French toast sticks — they're big enough that I didn't feel like I was getting ripped off when I paid the dollar-per-stick price that my local Wendy's charged. Had the sticks had a little more flavor, they probably could have ranked a couple of places higher.

Who doesn't love a good breakfast burrito? It's a breakfast staple that seems hard to mess up — just cook up your favorite breakfast foods, wrap them up in a tortilla, and you have an easy-to-eat handheld breakfast that's also bound to be pretty filling. On the whole, I wasn't disappointed with Wendy's breakfast burrito. It was a hearty breakfast option that I might even have ranked higher had I gotten it another time; the particular one I had, though, was incredibly salty.

Being overly salty really is the only thing that kept this at number five on my list. I liked that the breakfast burrito included potatoes along with egg, bacon, and cheese — as none of the other breakfast sandwich offerings I tried included potatoes, this was a welcome surprise. There wasn't a ton of textural variety in the burrito, which could have been helped had the bacon been crispier, but that wasn't a huge knock against it. Overall, this wasn't bad for a fast-food breakfast burrito; if you wanted, you could even give the breakfast burrito a BBQ twist to elevate it a bit.

It's unsurprising that breakfast potatoes would rank toward the top of my list. Though I am picky about my fried potatoes, I love them so much that a decent one is bound to rank relatively high on any ranking list; fortunately, Wendy's seasoned potatoes were more than decent. These hit the mark on every aspect for me, and the only reason I didn't rank them higher was because they don't qualify as a breakfast on their own, but as a side, they're great breakfast potatoes. 

I particularly appreciated that these are wedge potatoes rather than the typical lunch-style fast food french fries; it made them feel like a heartier breakfast. They boasted ample seasoning, and the outside was nice and crispy, though I'd have liked the inside to be more meaty. The potatoes are peppery and warm, and I think I detected a bit of paprika as well. You could certainly eat these with ketchup or your dipping sauce of choice, but honestly, I enjoyed eating them plain.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't expect to like Wendy's fresh-baked oatmeal bar. It's not something I would typically opt for when running through the drive-thru line at a fast food restaurant, but after having tried Wendy's version, I won't be so quick to eschew them again. As with the seasoned potatoes, though, I didn't rank this oatmeal bar higher because it doesn't contain the diverse elements a breakfast sandwich does; at the end of the day, it's just a bar.

For being just an oatmeal bar, this was pretty good. It definitely tastes like there's a ton of sugar in it, but I can't let that detract from how tasty the bar is — it has a strong cinnamon flavor, and the blueberries and cranberries added welcome tangy flavors to it. The texture of the bar was incredible — it was soft, chewy, and moist, making it really easy to eat. It was also larger than I expected and would be pretty filling if you only wanted a light breakfast. If you don't love breakfast sandwiches or burritos, this oatmeal bar would probably be a satisfactory alternative.

Fans of Wendy's Baconator may already be aware of its breakfast version of the sandwich, aptly named the breakfast Baconator. I'll admit, this sandwich was pretty yummy, but I'm not sure why the chain felt the need to call it a Baconator at all. Maybe to make it seem more familiar to customers, or like a more filling breakfast sandwich? The only thing that made this option different from the other breakfast sandwiches was that it was served on a hamburger bun and included both sausage and bacon, so it seemed a little hyped up for what it delivered.

Nevertheless, it was a good sandwich that I'd eat again. The breakfast Baconator consists of a sausage patty, egg, cheese, and bacon sandwiched together between a lunchtime hamburger bun. I really liked the sausage patty — it boasted some nice spices and was surprisingly flavorful. Serving this on a bun was fine, but I think I would have preferred the sandwich on another breakfast bread offering; the bun didn't make it anything special. In contrast with some of the other sandwiches I had featuring bacon, the bacon was more prominent in this one, and I found the sandwich's different elements to be well-balanced. Given that it's also pretty filling, this was an easy number two pick that vied with my next pick for the number one spot on my list. 

My favorite of Wendy's breakfast options was its sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin. This is quite a departure from my usual choice — I typically go for a biscuit over an English muffin and often opt for bacon instead of sausage. However, this sandwich may just make me shake up my breakfast routine. Every element of the sandwich was represented equally and it boasted a range of textures as well. It would also be exceedingly easy to upgrade this breakfast sandwich if you wanted to doctor it up at home.

The texture of the English muffin was delightful — it was slightly spongy on the inside and ever so crisp on the outside without being at all dense or heavy. I'd be tempted to add a sauce to this sandwich next time, but I still quite enjoyed it without one. The cheese was pleasantly melted without being gooey, and the sausage patty was, again, very well-seasoned and full of flavor. The egg added a nice kick of protein without overpowering the sandwich's other elements. While I wouldn't say anything about this sandwich blew me away, I felt it was the most balanced of all of Wendy's breakfast options, and would be a hearty breakfast without making you feel too full.

When ranking Wendy's breakfast items, they all started out on a relatively even playing field, as I'd never had Wendy's breakfast menu selections before. They're also all items that I generally tend to enjoy, so almost all were fair game for the top spot on my list. The only items that I didn't feel like I could place too high on my list were the seasoned potatoes and the oatmeal bar — they lacked enough variety for me to justify calling them full breakfasts, though they were each quite tasty.

Breakfast items with missing elements or unbalanced flavors (like the maple bacon chicken croissant) ranked substantially lower on my list than options with equally represented elements that were full of flavor. The middling spots on the list largely went to items that tasted good but didn't quite hit the mark for me — for example, the Cinnabon pull-apart was yummy enough not to be ranked last, but it was too dry and congealed to rank any higher. Similarly, the French toast sticks were tasty and had a great texture, but they didn't have enough flavor to give them a higher ranking. The top of my list featured flavorful dishes in which each ingredient complemented the others without one taking center stage.