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- Meal deals and value meals are more important to fast-food chains than ever.
- I tried the new McDonald’s Extra Value Meal that launched on Monday.
- I also tried four other fast-food chains’ breakfast value meals to see how they compared.
The fast-food wars are going strong, and brands are adding deals and value meals to their menus to attract customers who are feeling the pinch.
Most recently, McDonald’s announced the launch of a $5 breakfast as part of its new Extra Value Meal. I tried it on Monday, the day of its release, and was so impressed by its discount that I needed to re-rank my favorite fast-food breakfast meals to see how they stacked up.
I visited Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Dunkin’ to see which chain had the best food for the best price. My meals ranged from $4 to $8, and each included a sandwich, a drink, and a side.
Here’s what I thought of each breakfast and how I ranked them, from worst to best.
McCafé is well-known and beloved by some, but I thought this coffee had a slightly burnt taste.
Before this, I’d say that after Dunkin’, McDonald’s is the best-known fast-food chain for coffee.
Maybe it was an off day, but I didn’t love this. It was light and had a strong coffee flavor, but I also thought it had a burnt aftertaste.
I greatly preferred the Sausage McMuffin to a plain Egg McMuffin.
The last time I went to McDonald’s, I tried an Egg McMuffin. This time, as the emphasis of the new meal is the Sausage McMuffin, I tried that.
To my surprise, I liked it a lot better. The sausage didn’t have the same rubbery texture as the Canadian bacon of the Egg McMuffin, and it gave the sandwich a bit of spice. The cheese also offset the dryness of the English muffin.
I was obsessed with the hash brown.
I give this a 10 out of 10, no notes. It was crispy, salty, and just plain delicious.
Next was the breakfast meal from Dunkin’. It cost $6.53.
Breakfast is served at Dunkin’ all day.
This meal comes with a sandwich, a drink, and a side of hash browns.
It comes with a medium iced coffee. I added pumpkin and hazelnut swirls.
You can choose an iced or hot coffee, but because of the warm weather in New York, I went for an iced coffee. I added hazelnut and pumpkin syrups to make a DIY version of the Nutty Pumpkin coffee, which was added to the fall menu in 2022.
There are options for the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. I opted for a croissant.
I chose a croissant, but there are multiple options for the bread. The default is a plain bagel, while the other options are a different type of bagel (multigrain, sesame seed, cinnamon raisin, or everything), sourdough bread, or an English muffin.
The sandwich was flavorful, and the croissant was perfectly flaky.
Full disclosure: I’ve eaten this before, so I knew what to expect, and I was not let down. The croissant’s texture was perfect, the cheese was melted, and the bacon was just crispy enough.
It’s not the best egg sandwich I’ve ever eaten, but at less than $3, I can’t complain.
It also comes with an order of hash browns, which I was slightly underwhelmed by, in terms of size.
As I previously wrote, these hash browns are “salty, crispy, and subtly seasoned.” I just wish there were more.
Dunkin’ didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding portion size.
Next up was Taco Bell. It cost $7.92 for a coffee, a Breakfast Crunch Wrap, and two Cinnabon Delights.
Breakfast is served at Taco Bell every day through 10:45 a.m.
I got the Breakfast Crunchwrap Combo, though there are other combos, including a quesadilla or a breakfast burrito.
The chain has partnered with Cinnabon for its breakfast offerings, including the coffee.
This was the largest cup of coffee I was served by the chains — I also thought it was the best (besides Dunkin’).
The Cinnabon Delights-flavored roast comes with vanilla creamer, so it was very sweet, but I liked that it wasn’t watery at all.
The main item was a Breakfast Crunchwrap. It comes with egg, bacon bits, a hash brown, cheese, and a “creamy japapeño sauce.”
I’m not a huge Taco Bell connoisseur, so I had no idea what to expect from this wrap.
But I loved it. The bacon bits were a great way to add bacon without the concern that it was too chewy or tasted too burned. I also loved that the hash brown came inside the wrap, which meant I still got potatoes even though it wasn’t included as a side.
The sauce added a nice kick, too.
Instead of potatoes, Taco Bell’s side was an order of Cinnabon Delights.
Taco Bell teamed up with Cinnabon in 2013 to create this dessert.
These were genuinely delicious.
A Cinnabon Delight is a spherical bite of cinnamon fried dough filled with vanilla icing. I could’ve eaten so many more, but it’s probably for the best that it only came with two.
I reached out to Taco Bell with my thoughts on their breakfast meal, but they didn’t respond to a request for comment.
After being so pleased with Taco Bell, I was excited to move on to Wendy’s, which cost $4.55 for a coffee, sandwich, and potatoes.
Wendy’s stops serving breakfast in the morning, though the exact time depends on location. According to the chain, the latest time is 10:30 a.m.
Wendy’s breakfast meal deal is called the 2 for $3. You can choose any two items from a sausage-and-cheese English muffin, an egg-and-cheese English muffin, an egg-and-cheese biscuit, small seasoned potatoes, and a medium hot coffee.
I ordered on the app, and specified I wanted half and half with my coffee. I received black coffee with little packets.
I wanted to get two food items, but still wanted to try the chain’s coffee to compare it to the other chains, so I added coffee to my meal for an extra $1.19. Even with the coffee, the Wendy’s deal was still the cheapest.
Unfortunately, this coffee was just OK. It was weak and watery, and I could only take a few sips.
Wendy’s didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding its coffee.
I got an egg-and-cheese sandwich on a flaky biscuit.
For my sandwich, I opted for the egg-and-cheese biscuit. It was great; the biscuit was flaky and not too dense, the cheese was melted well, and the egg was slightly seasoned.
The homestyle potatoes, though, were perfect.
If I could get these instead of fries during my next Wendy’s visit, I would. They were crunchy, seasoned well, and not too thick.
Next was Burger King’s $8.03 meal for a coffee, breakfast sandwich, and an order of potatoes.
Burger King usually stops selling breakfast at 10:30 a.m., though on Sundays, it can run until 11 a.m.
Burger King’s breakfast meals include either a Fully Loaded Croissan’wich with Egg, a Chicken Strips Croissan’wich with Egg, a Beefacon Croissan’wich with Egg, a Chick’N Crisp Croissan’wich with Egg, or a Beef Croissan’wich with Egg paired with potato bites and a choice of drink.
A “Croissan’wich” is exactly what it sounds like: a breakfast sandwich on a croissant.
I thought this coffee was sickly sweet and tasted the most artificial.
I didn’t love this coffee, either. It tasted so sweet, even though I specified no sugar.
Burger King didn’t respond to a request for comment.
I ordered bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant, but I wish I had skipped the bacon.
Technically, I got a Beefacon Croissan’wich with Egg. This was solid, but I thought the bacon was a bit stringy and overwhelmed the rest of the sandwich. Once I took it off, I enjoyed the egg and cheese much more.
I loved the shape of these potatoes.
These are basically tater tots with a different name. They were like dime-shaped pieces of potatoes. Plus this was easily the largest side I received.
They were crunchy and quite salty, but I could’ve used pepper.
After trying each of these breakfast meals, here’s how they ranked. My favorite was from Dunkin’.
Dunkin’ had the best coffee, a really good sandwich, and tasty potatoes. It wasn’t the cheapest, but it was the second most affordable, and I think I got the most bang for my buck.
The coffee and the sandwich were larger than those I received from some of the other chains, and while I felt a bit skimped on the potatoes, I still got more than I did from Taco Bell or McDonald’s.
Second-best was Taco Bell, which surprised me.
The Breakfast Crunchwrap was the most different from the other sandwiches I tried, and I really liked it. The coffee was also the best after Dunkin’, and I loved having a sweet treat in addition to my savory breakfast.
Then came Wendy’s.
Wendy’s was the cheapest by far, putting it high on this list. Plus, the potatoes were awesome, and the biscuit sandwich was very tasty. I’ll skip the additional coffee in the future, though, which makes the meal cheaper anyway.
In fourth was McDonald’s.
With the new meal, McDonald’s jumped up from last place, where I had placed it in my original ranking. It became way more affordable, going from $8 to $5, and the Sausage McMuffin was way tastier than the Egg McMuffin I had previously tried.
While I still didn’t love the coffee, the hash brown remained perfect. That’s enough to vault it above Burger King for me.
In last was Burger King.
What places Burger King at the bottom was that everything was almost perfect. The sandwich was better once I removed the bacon, the potatoes, while good, could’ve used a bit more seasoning, and the coffee was just too sweet.
It was also the second most expensive, and I don’t feel it was worth it.
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