The Wendy's Breakfast Sandwich You Should Absolutely Never Order

Today's Wendy's menu hack: Skip the Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant. We ranked nine of Wendy's breakfast menu items, and this sandwich landed decidedly in last place. The issue here was a lack of cohesiveness. Don't get us wrong, this sandwich is a good idea ... on paper. If it's wrapped in paper, however, we'd rather just leave it that way and order something else. The sandwich aims for a "swalty" (aka sweet and salty) taste balance, but Wendy's Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich does a much better job at achieving this interplay.

Wendy's website describes the Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant as "Juicy white meat, lightly breaded and seasoned, Applewood smoked bacon, and maple butter on a flaky croissant bun. A little sweet. A little savory. A lot good." Perhaps befitting the fast food giant's trio of descriptors, our chief complaints about this disappointing sandwich also come in a trio: The "croissant" isn't really a croissant, the meat is too bland to lend any savory contrast, and as a result, the chief error is that this sandwich is unappetizingly sweet.

As our reviewer wrote, "[T]he sandwich was sickeningly sweet ... There weren't nearly enough other flavors on this sandwich to balance out the overly sweet fake maple flavor." That buttery, honey-forward, maple aroma may initially seem appealing, but it's an immediate letdown once you take a bite. The hyper-sugary, artificial maple taste clashed with the mild bacon, and without any savory dimensionality to back it, the flavor profile felt flat and disjointed.

Since we're talking bread, Dunkin's breakfast sandwiches come on the flaky, buttery vehicles foodies expect when they hear the word "croissant." In fact, Dunkin's Sausage Egg & Cheese Croissant snagged first place in our ranking of fast food breakfast sandwiches. Sadly, Wendy's spongey "croissants" do not share Dunkin's buttery triumph. They're more like a cross between a plain burger bun and a dense biscuit than an actual croissant. A review from The Impulsive Buy echoes this criticism of Wendy's maple monster: "The bun fails to make the sandwich ... Perhaps most telling, it doesn't stand out when paired with the heavy ingredients. And yeah, those other ingredients are heavy."

When Wendy's officially brought back its now-popular breakfast menu in March 2020, the Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant was part of the chain's original breakfast launch. Nearly five years later, we think it's time for a menu phase-out. After all, Wendy's has been experimenting with breakfast items since the 1980s, and this croissant sandwich "gagged us with a spoon," so to speak.

The sandwich used to include Swiss cheese but no longer does, which is a shame because that might have actually added a bit of funky contrast. As it is, the Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant comes off weirdly sweet. Our advice? Order the no-frills Breakfast Baconator (aka the ultimate hangover cure) instead. If you want a taste of something sweet, order a Frosty Cream Cold Brew to wash it down.