I Tried the New Chick-fil-A Jalapeño Bacon Ranch Chicken Sandwich! Is It the Best Thing on the Menu?
For longtime fans of fast food chains, a new item drop shaking up the usual menu can feel like Christmas morning when you’ve had the same old same old for quite some time. Although I do slightly understand the obsession with Chick-fil-A’s quality, I never really understood the line always being a mile long like you’re waiting in line at an amusement park.
When they dropped the Chick-fil-A Jalapeno Bacon Chicken Ranch Club, our one Chick-fil-A restaurant had a line yet again. But, is it worth the hype? Especially when paying nearly $10 for one fast food sandwich. Let’s try it and find out.
The Look:
After ordering through the drive-through, I secured my Chick-fil-A Jalapeno Bacon Chicken Ranch Club (around $9). The sandwich comes in original crispy chicken, grilled, or grilled filet and is topped with caramelized onion, candied bacon, pepper jack cheese, and jalapeno ranch sauce on a buttermilk ranch bun. The bun looked slightly toasted, but was cold. When I glanced inside the sandwich, the bacon looked crispy, fresh out of the pan. Not like the microwaved bacon that a lot of sub shops use that’s floppy, thin, and rubbery. The sauce comes in packets on the side to keep the bread from getting soggy. I wish the cheese was a little more melted. The only thing that was really hot on the sandwich was the breaded crispy chicken. They piled on a lot of vegetables, with plenty of fresh romaine that wasn’t actually wilted and multiple slices of juicy tomato. With the sandwich having jalapeño in the name, to pack in more heat, I would’ve appreciated a few more of the pickled jalapeños. When I looked there were only about four small pickled jalapeno chips.
The Taste:
At first bite, the flavor is great. The sauce adds a strong zesty flavor to the sandwich. The vegetables are fresh and the chicken is hot and crispy which eventually melted the pepper jack cheese (also adding a bit of heat to the sandwich). When I did get a jalapeño in my bite, I loved the blend of flavors from the smoky bacon, the spicy, crunchy jalapeños, the creamy cheese that added a bit of heat, and the crispy seasoned chicken. One of my main pet peeves is when the bread can’t hold up to the toppings. I would rather have less toppings and have the bread stay together, especially when you’re grabbing a fast food sandwich usually eaten on the go. The bun completely fell apart and couldn’t really hold up to the sauce, but the flavor was there.
Final Verdict:
Overall, it’s a delicious sandwich with fresh ingredients, but I wouldn’t get it again. For close to $10 I would rather spend that elsewhere, or honestly just on one of their original chicken sandwiches with the Chick-fil-A sauce. I prefer the Chick-fil-A sauce over the ranch. I would ask for extra jalapeños when I ordered if I got this again to make sure there was one in every bite, because they really made the sandwich.