The Best And Worst Things You Can Order At Fuddruckers

There are a lot of restaurants out there that claim to serve up top-notch, best-in-the-world burgers. Obviously, there can be only one best burger, and it's always a matter of opinion as to who actually is serving a product that wins out over every other version served on the planet. But that doesn't stop places from striving to be number one. If the craving for a delicious burger strikes and you find yourself in that dreaded culinary conundrum of where to seek out a burger that'll leave your palate clamoring for another bite, Fuddruckers might just be the perfect place to explore.

The Fuddruckers website proudly declares, "We were born to create the World's Greatest Hamburgers." The chain clearly thinks highly of the product it sells, as any restaurant should. And even though Fuddruckers flaunts the quality of its burgers, it also offers other dishes for you to enjoy. Of course, you have to always approach the menu with caution, as not everything on it is a gold medal-winning option. The next time you head out to your nearest Fuddruckers, keep in mind this list of some items that'll have your tongue singing praises and others that are a waste of your hard-earned money.

Best: Avocado Crunch Chicken Sandwich

When you're at Fuddruckers, the temptation to order a burger is almost too stave off, especially since the chain is so proud of the quality of the ones they make. But, not everyone wants to consume red meat, and that's totally fine. The good news is that you're not confined to burgers, which is what makes the Avocado Crunch Chicken sandwich a really great option. You still get to enjoy a handheld vessel of super tasty ingredients without consuming beef.

The chicken that comes with this sandwich is seasoned and grilled chicken breast, and the meat is super juicy. If you don't put the kind of love into a chicken breast it deserves, the execution can result in an overly dry texture that totally ruins your appetite. That's the exact opposite of what's going on here. The breast is topped with avocado, crispy fried onions, pepper jack cheese, spinach, and a drizzle of spicy ranch. All these toppings work wonders alongside the juicy chicken breast. The avocado lends creaminess, the onions offer a great salty crunch that contrasts the avocado, and both the pepper jack cheese and spicy ranch combine for a light kick of heat.

Worst: Southwest Salad

If you're heading to Fuddruckers with the mission of taking down one of the burgers but want to order a salad beforehand so you feel a little less guilty about all the calories, you have three options to choose from. Obviously, you'll read all the ingredients in each one before you make your decision, but it's imperative you don't allow yourself to become fixated on the Southwest Salad. Although the list of salad fixings might look appealing, it's in your best interest to go for something else. You've been warned.

The salad comes with seasoned grilled chicken breast as the protein. The meat is tossed with both Monterey jack and cheddar cheese, sweet corn, black beans, avocado, pico de gallo, and tortilla strips. All of these toppings should come together to create one heck of a great time, but the entire thing feels too dry. The texture of the chicken has you grabbing for water, and all the veggies seem like they have no moisture whatsoever. You get a little creaminess from the avocado, but not enough to make this worth your money. You end up having to drown everything in dressing in order to make it palatable.

Best: New Orleans Cajun Burger

It's almost impossible to talk about the food in New Orleans without saying the word "Cajun." The city is a mecca of great dining, and many of the dishes dazzle your palate thanks to the amazing Cajun spices and seasonings that are added to them. If you've always wanted to venture to New Orleans to sample the vibrant Cajun flavors but never managed to make the trip, you can order the New Orleans Cajun Burger at Fuddruckers instead. You may not actually be in New Orleans, but the flavors here instantly whisk your palate away to The Big Easy.

With this burger, there's not just a simple beef patty to smack you with some protein. You also get wonderfully rich and juicy seasoned Andouille sausage nestled right on top for a double dose of hearty flavor. The sausage is jam-packed with deep, smoky seasonings. The patty and sausage are draped with melty pepper jack cheese and a sautéed pepper and onion mixture. A hefty dollop of tangy remoulade sauce finishes everything off. The combination of flavors here is incredibly mouth-watering. The cheese cranks the spiciness of the sausage up a few pegs while the pepper and onion mixture adds a great subtle sweetness. But it's the tangy remoulade that marries everything together with a taste that prances over your palate, coating your taste buds with a creamy, zesty Cajun kick of vibrant spices.

Worst: Hangover Burger

After a night of drinking one too many beers, your body often craves something greasy to help soak up all the alcohol that's still washing around your belly like a stale ocean tide. So, if you find yourself stumbling into a Fuddruckers the day after a rager, you might immediately turn your attention to the Hangover Burger, and why wouldn't you? You have a hangover and you need to get rid of it. However, the combination of flavors in this burger may just leave you feeling even worse than when you walked in, and that's a recipe for disaster.

The ingredients here aren't complicated, so you wouldn't think that they'd all come together to make a big disappointment, but they do. The burger comes topped with American cheese, smokehouse bacon, and a fried egg. The issue here is that the burger is so darn rich and salty that it's almost inedible. The bacon and the beef patty alone give you a hefty kick of sodium, but then the richness from the egg yolk cascades over everything and it becomes a very overwhelming experience. Add some cheese into the mix to give everything a gooey texture, and you have yourself a burger that coats your mouth with too much unctuousness. This is not what you need when you're trying to stave off a hangover.

Best: Beyond Burger

Nowadays, people are concerned about the food they dump into their bodies, and for good reason. You can't treat your body like a dumpster and expect anything positive to happen over the course of your lifetime. Health is at the forefront of many minds, and one way people curb their intake of foods high in fat and cholesterol is to opt for plant-based versions of their favorite cuisine. At Fuddruckers, customers who want to stray away from red meat have the option to snag a Beyond Burger. Sometimes plant-based substitutions can really fall short of authentic fbeef lavor, but this burger does actual meat the proper justice it deserves.

The six-ounce plant-based patty that you get is made without soy, gluten, or any genetically modified ingredients, and it's really freakin' tasty. Sure, it might not taste identical to a rich, juicy beef patty that oozes fat, but this flavor is good enough that you don't even miss that actual-meat experience. Plus, the buns themselves even add to the experience. They're baked fresh, and as one customer said, they're "as addictive as I remembered — freshly baked, soft, and toasted with a buttery crunch no other burger joint has ever been able to duplicate." You can top the burger with whatever you want, so mix and match all the different flavor profiles and textures to create a really stellar burger that lacks some of the unhealthy traits of actual beef.

Worst: Crispy Fruity Square

After you've plowed through a boatload of savory dishes, nothing satisfies quite like a blast of sugar. Sugar kicks down the overly rich door you've built in your stomach with a welcome rush of sweet flavor that settles the party down and leaves you feeling like you've had a complete meal. Fuddruckers serves up several sweet options for your post-meal cooldown, with one of them being the Crispy Fruity Square. It looks like a big colorful crisped rice cube, but if it's the wonderful flavor of authentic Rice Krispies treats you're after, head to the local grocery store and buy them instead. These straight-up miss the mark.

Anyone who loves Rice Krispies treats knows that you have to have the right balance between the cereal and the marshmallow binding agent. Too much of either makes for a disappointing treat. But that imbalance is exactly what happens here. You feel like there's barely any marshmallow, which results in a very dry texture from the cereal. It doesn't have that gooey pull-apart goodness that's worthy of a photo on your Instagram account. Instead, there's way too much dry crunch and nowhere near enough of that spongy, melty marshmallow texture and flavor.

Best: Bourbon Blue Burger

Blue cheese has a great, sharp flavor that always lets you know it's arrived when it hits your palate. But it's also the kind of cheese that doesn't pair well with everything because it has such a funky tanginess to it, so you have to be careful when incorporating it into a dish. Luckily, the culinary minds behind the menu at Fuddruckers knew exactly what they were doing when it came to taking advantage of all the great characteristics of blue cheese when they created the Bourbon Blue Burger. This is the kind of product blue cheese would feel proud to be a part of.

There are some seriously rich and vibrant flavors at play in this burger. The beef patty is topped with thick smokehouse bacon, bourbon caramelized onions, blue cheese crumbles, and a thick sweet bourbon sauce. Every bite here punches you in the face with deep flavors. The bacon offers a wonderfully salty flavor that hits all the umami receptors on your tongue, but it never gets overwhelmingly salty thanks to the sweet caramelized onions that also have a delicate, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Every blue cheese crumble is like a different musical note that explodes with tanginess, slicing right through the richness of the bacon and beef patty. The bourbon sauce gives each bite a little heat but also a wallop of sweet, zesty flavor.

Worst: Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich

Nashville hot chicken is like a religion to some people. They live their lives constantly trying to get that next batch of it and love to preach about it to everyone they meet. When you dive into a batch of Nashville hot chicken that's made by someone who shows it the proper respect it needs, it's an eruption of deep-fried spicy richness that might just convert you to a believer too. Sadly, the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich at Fuddruckers doesn't manage to check off all the boxes you need it to in terms of flavor.

The crispy chicken strips used in the sandwich are tossed in a housemade spice blend so every little nook and cranny is coated. Unfortunately, although the spice blend itself is decent tasting and definitely gives the chicken some pizzazz, the actual chicken meat itself is super dry, and the unpleasant texture strips away any enjoyment the spice blend gives you. The chicken is topped with kosher pickles and pickled red onions, and although the vinegary bite that the pickled veggies have should lend a great flavor contrast to the fried chicken, there's an overabundance of vinegar flavor. Pencil a trip to Nashville into your schedule if you're seeking some of its authentic hot chicken, because you won't find it here.

Best: Strawberry Spinach Salad

Let's face the harsh reality: As delicious as a burger is, it certainly won't ever find itself on a list of healthy foods. Sadly, a juicy burger topped with a slew of tasty fixings won't help thin out that waistline, but hey, you gotta treat yourself sometimes. If you're looking for a lighter option at Fuddruckers, a salad is your best bet. There are three salads to choose from, but the one we highly recommend is the Strawberry Spinach Salad.

Wait ... strawberries in a salad? Yep, you read that correctly, and the combination of ingredients here really hits a grand slam. The salad consists of spinach, red onion, bacon bits, candied pecans, seasoned grilled chicken breast, and of course, strawberries. The strawberries lead the flavor charge here, lending a wonderfully juicy burst of sweetness to each bite. That sweetness is intensified by the candied pecans, which also give a great crunchy texture. The bacon helps balance out the sweetness with its salty flavor, and the sharp tang of the feta cheese tags along to give everything an additional funky layer of flavor. The chicken here is somewhat of an afterthought since there are so many tastes hitting you in all directions, but that's totally okay.

Worst: Ultimate Chili Cheese Dog

In a perfect world, your doctor would implore you to eat as many hot dogs as possible to stay healthy. Imagine how amazing that would be. Sadly, the world is far from perfect, and that means trying to limit the number of hot dogs you put into your body. But occasionally you have to please your belly beast and order one. At Fuddruckers, you have the option to get the Ultimate Chili Cheese Dog. However, don't let the word "ultimate" sway you into making the purchase. This hotdog is anything but ultimate.

The hotdog comes topped with exactly what's in the name: a ladle of chili and shredded cheese. You also get a few sliced jalapeños on top to add a bit of heat, as well. Visually this thing looks like it's going to be an epic time. However, when you take your first bite you can't help but feel incredibly underwhelmed by all the flavors. You want to get roundhouse kicked in the mouth with these ingredients, but instead, you experience a slew of bland tastes. The only ingredient that really stands out is the jalapeño because the heat overpowers everything else. The chili is bland, the cheese lends virtually no flavor, and the hotdog feels second-tier.

Best: Wings

Burgers and wings are two best friends that both deserve a spot on your table if you have enough of an appetite for them. There's something about picking every morsel of meat off a juicy wing that makes you feel like you're enjoying your meal a bit more compared to using utensils. For all the wing enthusiasts out there, Fuddruckers offers a bunch of different flavors, and you can order them by the bucket. You can opt for either wet wings, which means the chicken is basted in a sauce, or wings with a seasoned dry rub on them. It doesn't matter which flavor or style you choose, because they're all delicious.

The wing flavors range from sweet to spicy and everything in between. If you're not a big fan of anything spicy then order up a bucket of garlic Parmesan or teriyaki. The saltiness of the Parmesan flavor really hits hard, and it pairs great with the zest of the garlic. The teriyaki wings have that coveted umami flavor thanks to the soy sauce, and you don't even need blue cheese to fully enjoy them. Heat seekers can opt for flavors like Caribbean jerk or habañero barbecue that both set off that fire alarm on your tongue. If you're with a big group, order a variety of flavors so you can sample multiple sauces and rubs. It's a great start to your Fuddruckers meal.