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Buzz Feed
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
We Ate Everything On Popeyes' New Pickle Menu, And There's One Item Everyone Should RUN To Grab Before It's Gone
For all the seriously messed-up things we collectively dealt with in April, this month had one gleaming, shiny bright spot: beloved fried chicken chain Popeyes released a completely pickle-themed menu. 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. BuzzFeed 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. BuzzFeed 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 it even good? BuzzFeed 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. BuzzFeed 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. BuzzFeed 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 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. BuzzFeed 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 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. BuzzFeed
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
This Photo Of "The Ultimate Tuna Melt" Has The Internet Seriously Divided, And It's Very Obvious Why
Ah, the tuna melt: Some love her, some hate her, and some (me) specifically go to a 24-hour diner that's had that same vinyl seating since the '80s just to order her. I will personally never forget (or forgive) Senator Mark Warner's atrocious take on one of my favorite sandwiches. Warm tinned fish with mayo and melted cheese will probably always be a controversial sandwich choice, but a recent post by Cook's Illustrated just reopened the decades-long debate with what they deem to be "the ultimate tuna melt." View this photo on Instagram The recipe for "Diner-Style Sheet-Pan Tuna Melts" comes from America's Test Kitchen (the parent publication of Cook's Illustrated) and calls for an entire head of iceberg lettuce that's "cut into 1-inch-thick slabs" and divided amongst four sandwiches. Let's just say commenters were a little skeptical about this approach. And, hey, I'll defend some crunchy iceberg on a sandwich or burger any day, but this? The roof of my mouth hurts just looking at it. More importantly: WHERE IS THE TUNA?! Respectfully, this is a lettuce sandwich. Some people are even calling it a "recession indicator." Chef and cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt even shared his own troll-y version of the now-infamous iceberg (tuna) melt with the caption, "How'd I do, @cooksillustrated?" But he did admit that the original sandwich "looks really good." View this photo on Instagram He's not the only one who thinks so. Chrissy Teigen also commented on the original post, saying that it "LOOKS BOMB." Okay, Chrissy. But over on the r/FoodieSnark subreddit, people were convinced the sandwich was rage bait. "I'm an iceberg girlie but this is ridiculous and a textural nightmare," the OP wrote. A few internet sleuths figured the recipe was likely inspired by Palace Diner, a small counter restaurant in Maine known for serving a thick slab of lettuce on their tuna melts, which receive rave reviews. Commenters seemed to notice the similarity, too. One former Palace Diner employee pointed out the big differences, though: the original has both less lettuce and more tuna. A "gigantic ice cream scoop of tuna," to be exact. Anywho, I sure won't be adding a 1-inch lettuce slab to my tuna melts anytime soon because, as one commenter points out, we've endured enough. Would you try this sandwich? Let us know in the comments! No shade to the "ultimate," but if a classic tuna melt is more your style, download the free Tasty app to save and cook our recipe (plus 7,500+ others!) — no subscription required.
Atlantic
08-03-2025
- General
- Atlantic
Kosher Salt Is Actually Just Big Salt
When I was a child, in the 1990s, there was only one kind of salt; we called it 'salt.' It came in a blue cylindrical container—you probably know the one—and we dumped it into pasta water and decanted it into shakers. I didn't know that any other kind existed, and the women who taught me to cook didn't seem to, either: Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Moosewood Cookbook all call, simply, for 'salt' in their recipes. But about a decade ago, I started buying coarse kosher salt instead of the fine, uniform, iodized table salt I'd grown up with. I do not remember why. As my friends grew up and started building their own pantries, many of them also made kosher salt their default. These days, The New York Times calls explicitly for kosher salt in nearly all of its recipes, as does Bon Appétit. Two of the most influential cookbooks of the past decade, The Food Lab, by J. Kenji López-Alt, and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, by Samin Nosrat, both devote paragraphs to the benefits of kosher over table salt. It is now 'the lingua franca of restaurant kitchens'—as Mark Bitterman, who has written four books about cooking with salt, put it—and a cheffy shibboleth in home kitchens, too. You can find Diamond Crystal, the coolest brand, in the background of the famously verisimilitudinous restaurant show The Bear, and on cooking influencers' beautiful countertops; in 2023, when Trader Joe's started carrying it, chef Reddit exploded in enthusiastic all caps. Pretty much everyone eats salt, every day, and it's different now. Yet even kosher salt's most fervent converts may not entirely understand how it's different. Kosher salt, like all salt, is NaCl—sodium ions electrostatically bound with chloride ions and arranged in a crystal formation. Unlike certain specialty salts, it doesn't have unique properties by virtue of its provenance; it's not collected from the coast of France or mined from a mountain in Pakistan. Kosher salt is just big salt. It's also more expensive than table salt. You might assume that this is because it has been manufactured according to a stringent set of religious rules. But much iodized table salt is kosher—that is, prepared in adherence with Jewish dietary law—and what we call 'kosher salt' isn't categorically kosher: If you're feeling pedantic, the right term would be 'koshering salt,' because its oversize, craggy crystals are best for drawing the blood out of animals during kosher slaughter. America's great salt swap began in the 1980s, when farmers'-market culture and the health-food movement helped American chefs acquaint themselves with specialty ingredients, Bitterman told me: Himalayan pink salt; 'bad-ass, real good' fleur de sel from France. But by and large, chefs settled on kosher as their go-to. They did this for a reason so unbelievably basic that I laughed out loud when I first heard it: Kosher salt is easier to pick up. 'Table salt is too hard to pinch,' Adam Ragusea, a food YouTuber, told me. 'I mean, just try it. Anyone who's reading, just try it. Just pick it up … It's a pain in the ass, and it's messy.' Kosher salt is simply better for the way chefs tend to season their food, which is frequently, and without measuring, by eye and by feel. No one wants to be fiddling with a teaspoon on the line at a busy restaurant during the dinner rush. 'You can really feel it sort of touching your fingers, and leaving your fingers,' Chris Morocco, the food director at Bon Appétit and Epicurious, told me, whereas finer salt 'has a tendency to want to slip away.' Kosher salt's migration to home kitchens started in the late '90s, when the Food Network became a cultural force. Its big crystals suddenly had an added benefit: They look great being pinched out of a saltcellar and flung around on television, or at least better than table salt does being juddered out of a shaker. (Ina Garten, one of the network's early celebrities, has described Diamond Crystal kosher salt as 'always perfect.') As television turned chefs into celebrities, their fans began trying to emulate them at home. At the same time, recipes, like the rest of media, were moving online, and their tone was changing. Older cookbooks, Morocco told me, assumed a lot of knowledge on the part of their readers: 'Recipe language was very terse. They were not really holding your hand too much.' Online, recipe writers had unlimited space, a broader potential audience, and a business imperative to build a relationship with their readers. So their guidance became chattier and more descriptive, designed for a home cook who was eager to learn—and who could hold recipe developers more immediately accountable, yelling about bland soup or bad bakes in the comments section. 'Salt to taste,' which had for decades been a standard instruction in most savory recipes, gave way to specific measurements. But different salts have different densities, meaning a teaspoon of one brand can be recipe-ruiningly saltier than that of another. So recipe developers needed to be able to recommend a standard salt. Being chefs, they already liked kosher. In 2011, Bon Appétit, which was then becoming a major resource for Millennials teaching themselves how to cook, adopted Diamond Crystal as its house salt. This is all a little funny. Restaurant chefs started using kosher precisely because it was easy to use without measuring—now home cooks are measuring it out by the teaspoon. And a movement that espoused seeking the ideal ingredients for every dish resulted in widespread adoption of a one-size-fits-all salt. In doing so, modern cooking has inadvertently all but abandoned one of the most significant public-health advances in history. A few years ago, a 6-year-old girl showed up at a medical clinic in Providence, Rhode Island, her neck so swollen that it looked like she'd swallowed a grapefruit whole. After a series of tests, doctors figured it out: She was iodine-deficient. Her thyroid—the butterfly-shaped gland that is responsible for just about everything the body does, and which requires iodine to function—had swelled in an attempt to capture any microgram of iodine it could from her bloodstream. For centuries, thyroid dysfunction was endemic; millions of people around the world suffered from slow heartbeats, weakness, muscle fatigue, sluggish metabolism, and brain fog. When, in 1924, American manufacturers introduced artificially iodized salts, it was a miracle, right there on the shelf in the grocery store. Within a few years, the thyroids of the developed world were working again. Recently, however, doctors have started reporting more cases of iodine-deficient hypothyroidism—and our salt preferences may be at least partially to blame. Kosher salt, as you have probably guessed, does not contain iodine. Neither do most ultraprocessed foods, the main vehicle by which most people in this not-exactly-sodium-deficient country take in salt. Iodine deficiency can be serious, but is eminently treatable. (Pregnant women should be particularly attentive to their iodine levels, the UCLA endocrinologist Angela Leung told me, because deficiency can result in birth defects.) The 21st-century rise in hypothyroidism might therefore be less a cause for alarm than a chance to rethink our contemporary salt orthodoxy. Kosher's dominance, to hear Bitterman tell it, 'doesn't come out of magic or merit—it's cookbook writers and chef culture, a weird confluence of circumstances brainwashing everyone at the same time.' What's great for chefs may not be great for home cooks. Kosher salt isn't inherently better, and in some cases may be worse. I've now spent hours on the phone with salt connoisseurs—at one point, Bitterman earnestly described a certain type as 'luscious' and 'warm'—and have come around to the view that we should all be more open to using different salts for different purposes, in the same way that well-outfitted cooks might keep different types of olive oil on hand. Flaky fleur de sel is great for finishing dishes; flavored salt is perfect on popcorn. And for everyday cooking, iodized table salt is just as good as kosher—preferable, even, if you're worried about your iodine levels. Sure, all the recipes now call for kosher salt, but a solution exists: Ignore the instructions and season intuitively. Like a real chef would.
