Do Yourself A Favor And Avoid Ordering This Seafood Item From Popeyes

Popeyes is one of the most famous fried chicken chains around, with that famous Cajun seasoning and unique Louisiana side dishes to set it apart from the competition. It's also applied the same Cajun flair to a line of seafood items. Unfortunately, not all Popeyes seafood dishes are worth ordering. And the seafood item you should avoid altogether at Popeyes is the popcorn shrimp.

We had high hopes for Popeyes fried shrimp, considering its fried fish sandwich is the absolute best fast food fish sandwich out there. We were sorely disappointed by these measly fried shrimp — in fact, they made our list of Popeyes items you should avoid ordering. A heavily breaded, shatteringly crunchy coating with zesty, spicy Cajun spices is one of the things we love about Popeyes fried chicken. Perhaps the chain's recipe developers applied the same strategy to the popcorn shrimp, but it turned out to be a grave mistake. The shrimp used for the popcorn shrimp are tiny, disappearing under a mound of breading that all but conceals their briny, umami-rich flavor. After one bite, you'd swear that you're only eating breading. If you make the concerted effort to dig the shrimp out of the breading, you'll regret having done so. The shrimp themselves are rubbery and overcooked, no doubt cooked from frozen. We ended up concluding that the breading must be a decoy to conceal the terrible texture of the shrimp.

We aren't the only ones who think Popeyes popcorn shrimp aren't worth ordering. One Redditor in the r/Popeyes subreddit basically called the popcorn shirmp mystery meat, writing, "I found the shrimp to be almost unidentifiable as seafood. Small, salty, mostly-batter bites that could have been anything." As for the taste, texture, and size of the shrimp, another Redditor in the same subreddit joked, "Those are not shrimp, them are crawdad's from the Mississippi and Louisiana ditches and creeks." It's a good dig at the size of these minuscule shrimps, but we feel like that's doing delicious wild-caught crawfish dirty. Not only is Popeyes popcorn shrimp way too small for customers' liking, but the ratio of breading to shrimp left one customer in r/Popeyes asking, "Would you like some shrimp with your breading?"

Joking aside, it's safe to say that Popeyes customers are not impressed with this menu item. If you like the chain's seasoned breading, then sure, there are worse things you could order. But if you want to really appreciate the taste of the shrimp themselves, this isn't the dish for you. The quality of the shrimp is nowhere near that of the chicken, and one Redditor said, "Only Frozen shrimp out of bag into fryer. It's not chicken, no prep is involved." Popeyes does take great care in the preparation of its crispy fried chicken, to be sure, and we have a ranking of the chain's fried chicken items for you to explore. But if you're hankering for popcorn shrimp, you should explore other seafood chains to get your fix.