16 Best Chick-fil-A Orders Ranked in 2025
We’ve all been there: you’ve picked out the best Chick-fil-A order; you’re imagining that first bite…and then you remember that it’s a Sunday. But that also gives you a golden opportunity to congratulate yourself for surviving Monday with some of the best food at Chick-fil-A. Delayed gratification: it makes that order of chicken nuggets so much more rewarding.
But if you’re looking for something new to try, or you’re not a regular who knows exactly what goes into the best Chick-fil-A order, it’s easy to feel conflicted. Grilled or crispy? Which sauce to choose? They’re valid questions.
And, with Chick-fil-A being one of the top three chicken fast food chains in the U.S., it's not surprising that the millions that frequent the chain have differing opinions on what the best order is.
However, we’re here to attempt to discover the best thing to eat at this iconic chain. While it's impossible to be objective about fast food chicken, we’re pretty sure these are the 16 best Chick-fil-A orders to add to your rotation.
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The 16 Best Chick-fil-A Items Ranked
16. Chicken Noodle Soup
Soups are popular with diners looking for the healthiest items at Chick-fil-A, and for good reason. They’re low in calories and high in nutrients, not to mention superbly comforting on a cold day. And while no one is shouting out chicken noodle soup as a menu highlight, it’s a very worthy side dish we think warrants a mention here.
The texture of this fast food soup is a bit unusual — the broth is kind of thick and viscous – but the flavor is fantastic, and all of the components hold their shape well. (We’re guessing that not as much broth soaks into the noodles because it’s not as liquid, which probably helps.)
While not the best Chick-fil-A order on the whole menu, it’s a great choice for those looking for a tasty side or a lighter, lower-calorie meal.
15. Cool Wrap
Almost no one ever talks about the Cool Wrap, which is a shame. Is it Chick-fil-A’s best item? Probably not by most people’s standards. But it still deserves a shoutout among the best Chick-fil-A orders; so give us a second to convince you this unassuming grab-and-go item is one of the menu’s best.
With nothing but grilled chicken, lettuce and cheese, plus a creamy avocado dipping sauce to offer, it’s not conceptually all that different from your average pre-made wrap.
But if all you want is a quick and convenient meal option that also isn’t the worst high-protein fast food choice, this wrap is the Chick-fil-A order to go for.
14. Market Salad
Patrons of chicken fast food chains don’t tend to order salads. It seems kind of counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But that’s too bad, because Chick-fil-A’s salads are actually pretty incredible.
Although the Market Salad isn’t the highest-rated dish on this list, it’s a tasty way to get some green in your fast food meal. Salads at Chick-fil-A are heavily customizable; this one is best if you order it as it comes.
Berries, apple slices, blue cheese and grilled chicken might not sound like an intuitive combination, but it all comes together perfectly. And what you get is a light, summery salad that proves the best Chick-fil-A orders by no means have to be fried.
13. Spicy Deluxe Sandwich
You probably already have an opinion on whether you like your chicken sandwich spicy or mild, and we don’t expect this ranking to sway you. But if you do like your chicken with a little bit of a kick, the Spicy Deluxe is a bit of a cult favorite among Chick-fil-A fans.
It is basically the classic Crispy Chicken, but with some heat. You may well find that the extra bite in this one elevates it above the classic version; others won’t enjoy the experience much.
This one could definitely be ranked higher based on quality. But since it doesn’t tend to be actively preferred the way most of Chick-fil-A’s best items are, we’re leaving this one a little further down the list.
12. Chicken Biscuit
Name a more Southern combination than fried chicken and biscuits. Need we say more? While the rather paltry size of the chicken breast that you get with this alternative to the classic sandwich is a little bit disappointing, the sandwich is still as tasty as you’d hope.
If this were a little more substantial, we’d bet it would crack the upper ranks of the best Chick-fil-A orders. The chicken is as juicy and flavorful as ever, and the biscuit is buttery and soft.
It might even be hailed as one of the best fast food breakfast sandwiches. But as it stands, it just doesn’t have that something extra to boost it higher on the list.
11. Chick-n-Strips
When we’re talking best Chick-fil-A orders, you have to go in with the assumption that the baseline quality is absurdly high. Any kind of fried chicken you can order will be real, high-quality meat, and the texture is almost universally perfect. So you can pretty much never pan a Chick-fil-A menu item on the basis of the chicken.
That’s definitely true of the Chick-n-Strips. They are, as a whole, an incredibly high-quality product for a fast food joint. But they also don’t satisfy quite as much as the vastly superior chicken nuggets.
The breading is different and a little sweeter and the texture wasn’t as great as with the nuggets. So, while you’ll never be too terribly disappointed by these chicken tenders, we would recommend ordering the nuggets instead.
But if you choose them anyway? Well, they did still make a list of the best Chick-fil-A orders, after all.
10. Mac and Cheese
Mass-produced mac and cheese can be pretty depressing. A lot of it is clumpy, unappealing to look at and tastes like chemicals, quite frankly. That’s what makes it kind of incredible that Chick-fil-A’s Mac and Cheese cracks the top 10 on this list of the best Chick-fil-A orders.
While it doesn’t outshine the chicken dishes that take the top spots in any way, this is — in our humble opinion — the chain’s best side dish (after waffle fries!) The noodles have a nice texture, soft but with just enough bite to hold their shape, and the cheese sauce actually tastes like there might be real cheese in it.
Most people wouldn’t choose to order it all by itself, sure. But if you’re ever in the market for a side dish that takes your meal to the next level, it would behoove you to remember that Chick-fil-A can make a mean macaroni.
9. Spicy Chicken Biscuit
The same issues we raised when we talked about the regular Chicken Biscuit all apply here, so why is it ranked several places higher? In this case, it’s thanks to that same spicy breading that didn’t do much for us when it came to the Spicy Deluxe.
When paired with the lusciousness of a buttery, flaky biscuit and tender chicken breast, the hot kick of the Spicy Chicken Biscuit strikes a perfect contrast. It’s balanced, thoughtful and a pretty awesome Chick-fil-A breakfast option if you don’t mind a little grease first thing in the morning.
While it won’t be one of the best Chick-fil-A orders for you if you can’t take the heat, this one deserves a lot more respect than it gets.
8. Frosted Lemonade
No one really talks about Chick-fil-A’s sweet treats, which is kind of understandable. They’re all basically good, but the chicken is where things really shine, so why bother? At least, that’s what most fans think. Not us.
Frosted lemonade is a bit of a nebulous concept, one that might remind you of those containers of icy, lemon-flavored slush you could buy at amusement parks as a kid. At Chick-fil-A, it means blending soft serve (Ice Dream, as the brand calls it) with lemonade for a treat that’s not quite a soft drink and not quite a milkshake.
It’s a stroke of genius. We’ll stand by that. Not only is it one of the best Chick-fil-A orders (or additions to an order), we’d bet it’s among the best fast food desserts anywhere.
It’s the beverage of the summer — and when they release seasonal variants, like peach or dragonfruit and pineapple, you’d best believe things are going to get even better.
7. Chick-n-Minis
The Chick-fil-A breakfast menu is a funny concept: basically, every item begins with the premise that you ought to start your day with deep-fried chicken. Healthy? Hardly. Worth it? Definitely, especially when we’re talking Chick-n-Minis!
They’re easily the best Chick-fil-A order on the breakfast menu. If you’ve never sampled them, the Chick-n-Mini is like the downsized version of the Chicken Biscuit. And here, the small size works in their favor.
A tiny, sweet biscuit, a single chicken nugget, a dipping sauce of your choice — as far as fried chicken-based breakfasts go, it’s pretty inspired. It’ll be a lucky day if your catered work gathering happens to throw a few orders of these in the mix.
6. Cobb Salad
This is undoubtedly one of the best fast food salads anywhere, along with being one of the best dishes at Chick-fil-A. Uniting the brand’s iconic chicken nuggets with a surprisingly fresh and tasty Cobb salad base was a stroke of genius, and even the most fervent haters of anything green could probably, begrudgingly, enjoy this one.
Though fried chicken kind of defeats the purpose of ordering a salad, it’s a novel way of experiencing Chick-fil-A’s signature product that we think is pretty great.
5. Waffle Fries
Fast food fries rankings have been debated ad nauseam since the dawn of the internet. Our final word: Chick-fil-A is horrendously slept on in the fries department.
It would be hard to find a fast food fry that holds the tension between crispy exterior and tender interior as Chick-fil-A’s waffle fry, and absolutely no order would be complete without a container of them by your side.
Perfectly fried and seasoned, Chick-fil-A fries are essentially impossible to criticize. In our minds, they accompany every one of the best Chick-fil-A orders as the elite finishing touch.
You really have to hate joy not to love these things. And though they don’t crack the top three on account of only being a side dish, we’ll keep singing their praises every time fries come up in conversation.
4. Chicken Sandwich
The OG, Chick-fil-A’s raison d'être, and one of the best Chick-fil-A orders even now. We can’t say very much more about this iconic sandwich than others have already said much more eloquently, but you should know that it’s truly worth every word of the hype.
Nowhere in the fast food world will you find chicken as tender or an overall mouthfeel as harmonious. The only thing that keeps this order from climbing into the top three is its lack of adornment.
It really is just pickles, chicken and the sauce of your choice, and there’s an option still to come that’s a little more exciting. But seriously, that’s it — the only flaw in a near-perfect sandwich that often tops lists of the best fast food chicken sandwiches.
3. Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich
When it comes to taste, you’re better off ordering fried items at Chick-fil-A. There’s a reason most of the best Chick-fil-A items we’ve discussed are of the greasy variety.
Grilling chicken is tricky because it doesn’t trap moisture like frying does, so you run a greater risk of a dry product. That occasionally does happen with Chick-fil-A’s grilled items.
But this one is a rare exception. Chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, Colby Jack cheese and a deluxe bun that’s much more interesting than the normal one create a more substantial and, in our opinion, tasty sandwich than the standard grilled chicken sandwich. And those extras help to keep the meat from ever tasting too dry.
This is a sandwich that feels thought-out, grown-up and decidedly more wholesome than the average Chick-fil-A order. It’s an indulgence, but not on the same level as a crispy sandwich or even an order of nuggets. And at a chain that often attracts people looking for slightly healthier fast food than the average offerings, that nets it a lot of points.
2. Deluxe Chicken Sandwich
Take the perfect sandwich. Add cheese. The result: an even more unbelievably perfect sandwich. You might not imagine that a slice of American cheese could elevate a sandwich so immensely, but it truly does.
This is the Chick-fil-A sandwich to order if you’re only ever going to try one of them. For the best Chick-fil-A order, make sure you go for the sandwich that pulls out all the stops.
1. Chicken Nuggets
Did you really expect anything different? If there’s anything that every Chick-fil-A fan can agree upon, it’s this. In a sea of fried lumps of suspicious-looking chicken, Chick-fil-A’s all-white-meat chicken nuggets are the best in the business.
That slightly sweet breading, the texture that showcases the tenderness of the meat rather than the crunch of the fried shell — no one else is doing it like Chick-fil-A, and we salute them for it.
We’ve been loyalists ever since the author’s college stint as a Chick-fil-A line cook (yes, they really do bread and fry the nuggets with fresh chicken on-site!), but you don’t need any such experience to understand why this is the best Chick-fil-A order.
Your typical cheap fast food has nothing on this nugget experience. You’ll never find tastier fast food nuggets, and no matter how many you order, it will never feel like enough.
How We Ranked the Best Things at Chick-fil-A
It’s not easy to make a good ranking list of anything, let alone the best Chick-fil-A orders. So how do you synthesize all the information regarding each dish on the menu to decide what’s actually best? At Cozymeal, we have a whole lot of practice doing just that.
When ranking any culinary experience, be it the best fast food chicken tenders or items from the Chick-fil-A secret menu, here are a few best practices that guide our placements. First, we want to prioritize products that have the most positive reviews from the largest number of people. Cult favorites have their place, but it’s wider popularity that earns a dish a higher ranking on this list of the best food at Chick-fil-A.
Secondly, we draw broadly from personal experience. This doesn’t apply to every dish, and we’re cautious not to let our personal feelings artificially inflate the rankings of orders that may not be as appealing to a wider audience. But if we loved a dish, you’ll know!
Finally, we took variety into account. Since there’s no objective list of the best Chick-fil-A orders, we wanted ours to include a wide variety of dishes to ensure it had something to suit any reader’s taste.
Chances are, you came into this list with your own ideas about what the best Chick-fil-A order is. Most of us fans have our cherished opinions.
But with a surprisingly diverse menu and a lot of reasons to branch out, Chick-fil-A rewards a change of pace. Next time you pull into the drive-through, why not try something new?
For even more ways to explore your favorite foods, check out other experiences happening on Cozymeal.
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