We Ate Everything On Popeyes' New Pickle Menu, And There's One Item Everyone Should RUN To Grab Before It's Gone
The very-real (and very-buzzy) news went live on April 1, which made it probably the best piece of counterprogramming we could've asked for on an otherwise horrific day of April Fool's Day corporate hijinks and gags.
Even outside of the corporate world, the news really hit. In the past weeks, Popeyes' pickle menu has been making headlines and going viral just about everywhere. Everyone and their mother (seemingly) made a TikTok video taste-testing the entire line of pickle-y items. Sites like The Takeout called it the "best menu ever." In perhaps the biggest shock to me, personally, J. Kenji López-Alt — aka the internet's favorite food expert — called the menu"shockingly good" and "some of the best fast food [he's] ever had." If that's not high praise, IDK what is.
Suffice it to say, it took no more than three strolls past Popeyes' NYC flagship on my commute to the office to decide that we needed to hop on a pickle menu taste test to see what all the fuss was about.
(Actually, I'm kidding. I knew we were gonna do a taste test from the first time I watched Kenji take a saucy lil' bite of that fiery red pickle-glazed wing.)
Let's make one thing clear: no pickle haters here. I grabbed Meg, a bona fide pickle lover and fellow Tasty team member, to conduct this taste test with me. And in case you're forgetting how much I love pickles, never forget that I once conducted a solo taste test of all the most popular pickle brands out there for this exact website. That's commitment.
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Anyways! Moving on to the dill-icious stuff (sorry).
The official Popeyes pickle menu, which is a limited-time offering only (we'll see about that 👀), has five core menu items: three Pickle Glaze items, including a sandwich, bone-in wings, and boneless wings; fried pickles; and pickle lemonade, which comes in regular and frozen varieties.
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Since the pickle glaze is the only thing that sets this menu's chicken apart from Popeyes' regular fried chicken, we opted for the boneless wings to get the most meat in each bite. To confirm their process, yes, I saw a Popeyes worker toss regular boneless wings into our box and shake 'em up with pickle glaze. That's it! There's no other magic.
Meg and I found a quiet corner to gorge ourselves on fried food and syrupy sweet beverages, quietly taking notes to ourselves on how each item tasted as we progressed through the bunch. How pickle-y did each item taste? Was the pickle flavor warranted or weird? Most of all...is it even good?
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These are all questions we, lucky for you, were ultimately able to answer.
At the end of our tasting experience, we independently assigned pickle scores (aka how pickle-y each item tasted) and overall scores out of five to each item, then silently ranked them from five to one — worst to best — and compared notes. Spoiler alert: we were in complete agreement in our rankings, and that's saying something.
5. Regular Pickle Lemonade — For a drink that seemed like it would be a total pickle gimmick, it was anything but. Actually, dare we say, it could be even more pickle-y.
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Popeyes' regular pickle lemonade was icy cold, super lemony, and had just a bit of pickle flavor you could taste at the end of each sip. Honestly, they could've afforded to amp up the pickle-y notes in this drink; maybe it's just a syrup they add to their regular lemonade, and they skimped this time for some reason. We may never know.
Unlike most fast food lemonades, this one tasted fresh, too: the lemon tasted more or less real, it wasn't sickeningly sweet, and overall was a delightful drink to leisurely sip on without feeling like you were guzzling something syrupy-sweet.
The only reason this one didn't get a higher rating? Somehow, the other items hit even harder.
4. Pickle Glaze Wings — Were they good? Very (at least I thought so). Were they pickle-y enough? Absolutely not.
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Meg and I were sorta split on these wings when it comes to their overall score; I thought they were exceptional, she thought they were just good. But we agreed that there was absolutely no pickle flavor detected whatsoever.
The sauce slathered all over them was very tasty, for the record! It's smoky and perfectly balanced between sweet and salty, and honestly not like any sauce I've ever had on my wings. But truthfully, for a pickle menu, we wanted more pickle!
Still, the chicken itself was juicy and tender, and the signature Popeyes fried coating adhered beautifully and lent a loud crunch to each and every bite. We weren't disappointed...just misled, perhaps.
Pro-tip: If you order these wings at Popeyes, ask for a side of pickles to go with them. Topped with a pickle chip, each bite would truly be earth-shattering.
3. Frozen Pickle Lemonade — Barring its intense sweetness, this drink is the holy grail of frozen lemonades. Dilly, tart, and perfectly slushy, I guess frozen lemonade has always been secretly begging to be pickle-ified.
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There's no denying that this beverage is ridiculously sweet, but its sugary zing is almost completely balanced by the saltiness of the pickle flavoring. As Meg said, it's basically just "salty lemonade" with pickle flavor, but don't let that weird you out. It's good. Very good, in fact.
While tart, it's also not overly acidic, which I appreciated; I was expecting pickleback levels of acidity, so my stomach and I were pleasantly surprised that each and every sip was smooth and delightful.
Pro-tip: This + a shot of bourbon (!) would be the most epic summer cocktail of all time. Popeyes, if you're reading this, please keep this on the menu long enough so I can make this dream a reality.
2. Fried Pickles — While not the best fried pickles we've had, for fast food, they were epic and jam-packed with flavor...even before dipping them.
I've never met a fried pickle I didn't like, but I've certainly met a fried pickle I didn't love — and lucky for me, Popeyes' fried pickles fell squarely into the "really loved" category.
The breading was the best part, hands down. Full of that signature Popeyes savory zing, I'd actually say they were some of the most flavorful fried pickles I've ever tasted, even before dipping them into a vat of ranch.
Our two qualms? First, the pickles could've been sliced a little thicker. With so much (tasty!) breading, the pickle innards felt slightly sad by comparison. Second — and this is fully nitpicking — they could've been a bit crunchier, but I'm sure this is just a result of them sitting in their hopper before being scooped up for our order. Actually, knowing they probably sat for a while before being served to us, we were kinda impressed by how much crispiness remained.
Moral of the story: If you can somehow get a straight-out-of-the-fryer batch, eating one of these fried pickles might be nothing short of a holy experience.
1. Pickle Glaze Sandwich — No notes. OK, very few notes, but all in all, this is one impressive chicken sandwich that tastes like something you'd easily pay $15+ for, not $7.
I've always been a fan of the Popeyes chicken sandwich, but IMO, the pickle glaze upped the ante even further (and Meg agreed). Our favorite part of this sandwich was how dang crispy the chicken stayed, even slathered in sauce. Each bite was ASMR-worthy and reverberated around my brain as I chomped. That's seriously crunchy, folks.
Could the piece of succulent fried chicken have been coated or tossed in the sweet-smoky pickle glaze instead of just dolloping the sauce on top? Sure. Could they have added on a few more pickle chips, considering this is a pickle-flavored sandwich? Also sure. But overall, we both agreed that this was an undeniably special sandwich, and we wouldn't hesitate to order it again, especially at its $7 price point.
There you have it, y'all. If you're drooling all over your phone by now, swing by Popeyes before May 5 when the pickle menu supposedly will disappear for good. Though, to be honest, I think Popeyes would be smart to keep it around.
If you'd rather make a fried chicken sandwich in the comfort of your own home, download our free Tasty app to try our buttermilk fried chicken sandwich recipe — then access the rest of our 7,500+ recipes without a subscription.
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