8 Items To Avoid Ordering From Popeyes

When you're looking for some delicious fried chicken, there are few better fast food chains to visit than Popeyes. The Louisiana-themed restaurant is known for its super flavorful breading, which surpasses that of most other fried chicken chains out there. There are countless delicious dishes to choose from at the restaurant, ranging from the famed spicy chicken sandwich to the more classic signature chicken meals. But just because Popeyes has some seriously tasty offerings on its menu doesn't mean that everything you order from the chain is going to taste good.

In fact, there are a few Popeyes items that we tend to avoid ordering when we want the best chain chicken restaurant meal possible. We've determined the menu items you should skip based on personal experience, previous Tasting Table rankings, and online reviews. Of course, everyone has different tastes, so you may actually like some of the items on this list. However, if you're going to Popeyes for the first time, you may want to steer clear of these items and stick to the tried-and-true favorites elsewhere on the menu. These are the menu items we suggest avoiding the next time you find yourself at Popeyes.

We did a tasting of all the different side dishes you can get at Popeyes and ranked them from worst to best. The worst-rated side dish on the entire menu was the red beans and rice. Now, since this is a Louisiana-style restaurant, you may think that getting the red beans and rice is essential to a good meal. However, we found that wasn't the case, since the rice and red beans had an incredibly mushy texture and excess oil.

Like a lot of other dishes you'll find at Popeyes, the red beans and rice are quite salty — but that's really all it seems to have going on for it in terms of flavor. Ultimately, there are better side dishes to choose from at Popeyes, so it doesn't make sense to opt for the red beans and rice unless you're specifically craving something super salty and somewhat lacking in texture. Luckily, though, it's super easy to make your own red beans and rice at home.

We love it when a restaurant offers its diners other options apart from what it's known for, but let's face it: You shouldn't go to Popeyes if you're not craving chicken. That's why we think it's so strange that the chain has a whole seafood section of its menu. Who's going to Popeyes looking for seafood? It seems to be such an afterthought — and that comes through in the flavor. Perhaps the most appealing seafood dish on the menu is the popcorn shrimp, simply because it seems like it's hard to mess up.

But believe us when we say that this is really not an entree you want. The shrimp is covered in so much breading that you can barely tell there's any shrimp under there at all. The little bit of shrimp you can actually taste has a rubberiness that makes us think that it often comes out overcooked. Popeyes is the kind of place you go to when you're specifically craving chicken, so skipping the shrimp is going to be your safest bet.

When you're going out to eat at a random restaurant with a menu that has seemingly everything, it may not be a bad idea to order the chicken tenders. After all, it's a relatively simple dish, and you pretty much know what you're going to get every time. But when you're going out to a place that's specifically known for its chicken, opting for the chicken tenders isn't the best idea. After all, the bone-in chicken is probably going to have that juicier, more tender texture you're looking for — most chicken places aren't focused on the tenders above all else.

That's one reason why you shouldn't order the classic chicken tenders the next time you're at Popeyes. Additionally, when we did a tasting of several of Popeyes' most popular dishes, we found that the breading on these tenders was excessive, creating an unnecessary crispness that detracted from the flavor of the chicken itself. Honestly, you're better off buying some frozen chicken tenders and making your own meal at home.

Just because a restaurant serves good chicken doesn't necessarily mean it's going to do chicken wings right. Chicken wings are a very specific dish that requires a special touch — a touch that Popeyes doesn't seem to have. That's especially true when it comes to the chain's roasted garlic parmesan wings. In theory, they sound great: After all, how can you not love anything that's garlic and parmesan flavored? But when you order these wings, they tend to come out a bit soggy, especially if you wait to eat them until you get home. If you do decide to order them, we suggest getting the sauce on the side so the wings don't lose their crispness right away.

The other bad part about these wings? They don't reheat well either, so you'd better make sure you get to them quickly. That's really not ideal for a fast food restaurant where you don't have a ton of patrons actually eating at the restaurant itself. There are many better places to get chicken wings — let Popeyes stick to its famous bone-in chicken instead.

Some chicken-focused restaurants don't have much on the menu besides their most basic types of fried chicken, but that's not the case at Popeyes. You can actually find quite a few unexpected dishes that you may not encounter at other chicken joints. The chain's wraps are a good example. When you go to a place known for its Louisiana-style cuisine, you're probably not expecting to see a wrap on the menu. But, alas, you can snag one at Popeyes. You can get either a classic wrap if you're looking for that standard fried chicken or opt for a blackened wrap if you want something a bit lighter (and a lot more flavorful).

As good as the chicken in the wraps may be, though, Popeyes isn't the place to opt for a wrap over the more classic items on the menu. These wraps don't taste as fresh as they could, which doesn't come as a surprise considering that the restaurant mostly focuses on cooked comfort food. The lettuce can be limp and soggy, and the tortillas taste like they've been sitting in a plastic bag for a while. You can safely skip the wraps on the menu and not feel like you're missing the best that the chain has to offer.

Is Popeyes' coleslaw the absolute worst side dish you can order off the menu? It took the fourth spot in our ranking of Popeyes' side dishes, but considering the list isn't that long, coming in fourth place doesn't exactly spell success for the veggie-focused side dish. Although we love that you can get something vegetable-forward at this otherwise indulgent fast food joint, something was off about it. First of all, it had too much dressing, leaving the coleslaw too watery and viscous for our taste.

Sure, if you really want to make sure you have something cold and crunchy to snack on while you eat your chicken, then the coleslaw may not be the worst thing you could order. But if you love coleslaw already, it's almost certainly going to come as a disappointment when you find yourself with a ton of dressing and not enough crunchy cabbage.

It should come as no surprise that a Louisiana-style restaurant does spicy chicken well. Compared to the plainer chicken offerings at Popeyes, the chain's spicy chicken always delivers. That being said, we still don't believe that opting for the tenders — as spicy as they may be — is a good choice. The spicy tenders may be a step up from the classic chicken tenders, but they still don't quite hit the mark for us. The breading is excessive here as well, which makes every bite feel like you're getting more carbs than chicken.

Of course, not everyone likes bone-in chicken, and if you fall into that camp, then the spicy tenders may not be the worst option on the menu. But the spicy bone-in chicken is where it's at if you want a little bit of heat in your meal. You're better off skipping the tenders, spicy or not.

The absolute worst item we tried at Popeyes while ranking some of its most popular dishes from worst to best? The signature hot wings. Again, Popeyes isn't known for its chicken wings, and it seems kind of like a random choice to select them over the many, many other, more classic items on the menu. If you do order them, though, you'll likely discover that the sauce is, well, too saucy, creating a soggy mess out of what should be a crisp, crunchy breading. The flavor of the sauce is a bit overpowering, too, with its over-the-top boldness and acidity. Since both the flavor and texture of these wings are off, it's just not a dish we could ever recommend from the chain.

Again, if you do decide to order these wings and you want them to taste as good as possible, it's in your best interest to get the sauce on the side and dip as you go. Still, though, you'll probably be happier if you opt for one of the more classic chicken options on the menu.

The criteria for these specific Popeyes menu items included our personal experiences at the chain, Tasting Table rankings, along with various online reviews. We paid special attention to freshness, overall flavor, texture, and consistency — the products listed here all struggled in these arenas. Of course, every Popeyes location is different, so these reviews may not hold true for all of these dishes every single time you order. However, we've found that these are the dishes we'd prefer not to take chances with while ordering from the popular chicken chain.