Every Burger King Breakfast Item, Ranked From Worst To Best

When you're running late, forced to slip out the door with a grumbling stomach and the regret of hitting snooze one too many times, fast food breakfast is your morning's saving grace. It's quick, hot, and always hits the spot. A hearty drive-thru breakfast tastes the best on a long drive, or when you know you just saved yourself from a burnt cup of breakroom coffee and a stale donut to get you through the afternoon.

Burger King is an underappreciated sleeper hit in the world of fast-food breakfast. It's one of the most famous burger chains in the nation, and as such, the iconic Whopper tends to overshadow its breakfast offerings. But despite being a chain that seems to always either hit big or miss the mark completely, its breakfast menu is seriously underrated.

I've gathered up every item on my local Burger King's breakfast menu to uncover the best morning meal the King has to offer. I ranked everything from worst to first based on flavor, freshness, and value in the hopes of finding something that tastes like it's right off the grill at an artisanal café. It may sound like a long shot, but sometimes fast food breakfast is a whole lot more than just some greasy eggs and soggy bacon.

In the Southern and Midwestern U.S., biscuits are a must at breakfast. I'll admit that, as a born and bred New Yorker, I'm not much of a biscuit fan (I prefer a fluffy kaiser roll or chewy bagel). However, I should preface this by assuring you that my biscuit prejudice didn't force me to rank this breakfast sandwich last — it was really just that bad.

Burger King manages to do just about everything to ruin a morning classic that previously seemed hard not to love. The biscuit tastes like it was exposed to the elements for a few days, left to float in a pool of cement, and then covered with a thick layer of super glue. Alright — that's a little extreme. What I'm trying to say is that this biscuit was hard, not buttery and fluffy like a good biscuit ought to be.

To make matters worse, the bacon on the sandwich was minimal, and what little there was tasted like a half-crunchy, half-gelatinous pile of salt with a touch of liquid smoke. The sparse bacon made the moderately decent American cheese taste too creamy and overpowering. Overall, this crunchy, salt-flavored biscuit doesn't deserve a spot in your take-out bag under any circumstances, earning it the last-place spot in this ranking.

Sure, it's intended for kids, but sometimes you just need a little treat for breakfast instead of a hefty meal weighing you down. Enter the Breakfast Burrito Jr., a cute baby burrito courtesy of BK's kid's menu. It has the four breakfast staples — meat, cheese, eggs, and potatoes — wrapped up in a little flour tortilla; what more do you need?

You can choose between ham, bacon, sausage, or no meat for your junior burrito, and I opted for bacon, because I'm told it's the most popular choice for this mini meal. Inside, the eggs are decently fluffy, the bacon has a slight crisp (it could certainly be crispier), and the potatoes give it some oiliness and heft, although they're pretty bland. The cheese wasn't fully melted, but I kind of enjoyed the half-melted texture. The wrap, however, delivered this breakfast's death blow. It was so thick, dense, and chewy that it overshadowed all the other ingredients, making the entire thing taste bland. The eggs practically disintegrated in my mouth before I was done chewing the wrap, which was an unpleasant sensation to say the least.

The ham, egg, and cheese may not be quite as much of a classic as the bacon, egg, and cheese (or "baconeggandcheese" if you're from New York), but it's a mainstay on fast food menus nonetheless. I was actually pretty taken aback by the aesthetics of Burger King's ham biscuit. The biscuit looked just as dastardly as the one that earned itself the last-place spot in this ranking, but the thick single slice of folded ham looked appetizing. I prefer a small mountain of thin-sliced ham on a breakfast sandwich, but thick-cut ham certainly has its place.

The ham was distinctly sweet, but still plenty salty, as any proper ham should be. It had a slightly tough texture and a flavor that was noticeably not the highest quality, but it didn't taste out of place on a fast-food breakfast sandwich whatsoever. The ham's bold flavor — albeit on the artificial side — was bold enough to distract somewhat from the gnarly biscuit, and although its texture was a little firmer than ham ought to be, it paired nicely with particularly fluffy eggs.

The sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit ran circles around the other biscuit sandwiches, although that isn't saying much. Fast food breakfast sausage is usually questionable at best, but Burger King's was actually very impressive, especially compared to the subpar ham and bacon. I appreciate that the sausage patty was big enough to touch the entire circumference of the biscuit (looking at you, bacon) so that every bite was loaded with meaty goodness. The cheese was a nice touch, and it didn't overpower the entire sandwich as it did with the bacon biscuit.

The sausage itself was really the only saving grace on this sandwich, since the biscuit was, once again, like a greasy rock. I'm not entirely sure what this breakfast sausage is really made of, but it's tasty enough to warrant not caring. It had a nice salty and spicy bite with a hint of sweetness, as any respectable breakfast sausage should. The soft, delicate bite of the sausage patty managed to distract from the solid, crumbly biscuit enough to make this sandwich much more appealing than previously mentioned biscuits. Fluffy eggs complement the soft sausage patty — in fact, all the soft textures make the hardness of the biscuit strangely enjoyable.

Of all the biscuit meals, the fully loaded version — with ham, bacon, sausage, cheese, and eggs — was the most appealing, but it'd still skip it in favor of the non-biscuit breakfast options. Paired with a pile of salty, oily meat, the dry texture and bland flavor of the biscuit were significantly less apparent. It felt like a reprieve from all the salty flavors, and it did a decent job soaking up some of the grease. But while the salty meat was able to save the biscuit, it still wound up being this sandwich's biggest downfall.

It sounds delicious — I mean, if you love bacon, ham, and sausage, why not have them all together, like a meat lover's breakfast? Well, not every concept works out in practice. Even though the biscuit was more edible, I started feeling woozy only a couple of bites into this mountain of processed meat. Whether you have a medical condition or not, too much sodium is a bad idea. The cheese and eggs were buried by the flavor of deli meats, which isn't a desirable quality in a decent, balanced breakfast sandwich.

I'm strangely obsessed with French toast sticks. They check all the boxes for a cozy breakfast or snack: Sweet, cinnamony, nostalgic, warm. I was excited — but skeptical — at the thought of trying French toast sticks from a place known for nothing but burgers and fries. But they wound up meeting my expectations by acting as an acceptable sweet side item that didn't blow me away, but didn't leave me disturbed, either.

Burger King's French toast sticks have a decent amount of cinnamon, and they aren't too sweet to load up with syrup. But the reason they didn't land closer to the top spot was their oiliness. They were so greasy that they were literally sagging from the weight of the oil. To make matters worse, it left an unpleasant aftertaste and texture all over my taste buds. Dipping them in syrup helped mask the oily taste, but good French toast sticks should be light and fluffy, and these were far from it.

No fast food breakfast menu is complete without a stuffed-to-the-brim breakfast burrito. Burger King's take on this classic is decent enough to act as a quick, cheap meal on the go — especially for the fact that it's easy to eat while driving. It comes stuffed with your choice of two meats (I got double bacon), hash browns, plenty of egg, cheese, and a creamy Sriracha sauce.

The tortilla faux pas that befell the tiny Breakfast Burrito Jr. didn't plague this regular-sized one; there were plenty of breakfast goodies inside to balance out the taste and texture of the tortilla, although the cheese was a little cold. Eggs made up the bulk of the burrito, which wasn't entirely disappointing since these eggs (despite being a liquid mixture — Burger King doesn't use real, fresh eggs) are fluffy and buttery.

This burrito really needed some more flavor, something to give it a little "wow" factor. A breakfast sandwich can get away with being a bit bland, but a burrito needs more zest. The Sriracha sauce was barely noticeable, so I'd recommend asking for extra on the side. Or, better yet, employ one of our breakfast sandwich hacks and stuff the French toast sticks inside the burrito for some sweet-and-salty pizzazz.

I'm a sucker for a croissant breakfast sandwich (who isn't?), so I was looking forward to diving into this monster of a morning meal from good ol' BK. It sounds appealing on paper, but ham, sausage, bacon, egg, and cheese piled high on a lightweight croissant is a recipe for disaster when it comes to both structural integrity and flavor.

All of the processed meats on this sandwich blend together to create a weirdly salty, fatty flavor, masking the cheese and eggs so that I could hardly tell they were present. And good luck eating this beast without spilling at least a few egg chunks — a croissant isn't really the right bread choice for so many toppings. The croissant, however, was shockingly delicious and flaky. With a spicy condiment to pair with the rich, fatty flavor, this sandwich has potential — but only if you're really, really hungry and can scarf it down before it falls apart.

Bacon and eggs are an inseparable breakfast duo, and with cheese and a buttery croissant thrown in the mix, you've got a recipe for an instant-classic morning meal. While I had a few reasons to gripe about this BK breakfast item, overall, it's still a solid menu option. The croissant is easily the most impressive feature here; it's perfectly toasted to give it a nice crispy bite and accentuate the butteriness. It's soft and squishy, pairing well with the chain's decadent eggs, which — dare I say — blow McDonald's fluffy eggs out of the water.

Just like with the other bacon items on this list, Burger King's bacon on this Croissan'wich could definitely be crispier. The exterior has a slight crisp, but it's mostly the undercooked, wiggly kind of bacon, which might be suitable on a breakfast platter, but doesn't translate well to a sandwich. Still, there was a nice balance of cheese, meat, egg, and bread to make this a worthwhile morning treat.

As we've already established, Burger King's breakfast sausage is pretty darn delicious, despite the negative reputation of fast food sausage. It has a unique seasoning blend that gives a sandwich a potent punch of flavor, pairing beautifully with rich, creamy cheese and savory eggs. But there's a reason they say that line about too much of a good thing.

Flavor-wise, there's nothing to complain about in the Double Sausage Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich. But, as you might expect, this sandwich is missing balance. Salty, peppery sausage takes over the sandwich, which isn't entirely terrible since it's a delicious sausage patty after all. But the richness and oiliness of the sausage will really only hit the spot if you're in the midst of an intense meat craving in the morning. Otherwise, you're in for a belly full of grease and some epic meat sweats that may or may not be worth it.

Whether you pile them onto a sandwich, munch on them on the side, or crave a vegan fast food breakfast of pure, unadulterated potato power, hash browns are always there for you. They grace every fast food breakfast menu as shaved potatoes, patties, or poppable nuggets, the latter being the form that BK's hash browns take. They aren't quite as hardy as a pile of spuds or a fat, greasy patty, but there's something about their poppability that's irresistible. I also appreciate that they're easy to munch on while driving — a significant quality of a fast food item.

Flavor-wise, these spuds miss the mark a bit with a salt-based flavor. They could use a little paprika, or even just a little black pepper, to wake them up. But in the texture department, Burger King's hashbrowns are a slam dunk. They have a thick, crispy layer of crunch with a moist, soft inside. Their tiny size gives them more surface area to get crispy in the fryer, and it makes it easy to load up a breakfast sandwich with these little golden morsels.

A ham, egg, and cheese feels strangely more elevated than a sausage or bacon sandwich, especially the way Burger King does it. The pink ham with the dark rim, plenty of scrambled eggs, and melty cheese made this sandwich look like the breakfast of champions. Flavor-wise, it matched its aesthetic and wasn't too far off from the perfect on-the-go meal.

The buttery flavor in the croissant paired well with the sweet deli meat, with cheese-drenched eggs acting as a mild, creamy canvas for the bread and ham to play against. This was an impressive sandwich coming from a fast food joint that isn't well-known for its breakfast. But although the thick-cut ham has its attributes, and it was a nice touch on the biscuit sandwich, thin-sliced ham would have paired much better with the texture of a delicate croissant. I also would have preferred a bit more ham — there was only a decent amount of meat in about 60% of bites.

At this point in the ranking, I've come to notice that Burger King's sausage is by far its best breakfast meat. It has a slight crispy char on the outside, leading the way for a melt-in-your-mouth texture within. It's salty, sure, but there's so much more to it: There's a hint of spice and plenty of black pepper complemented by a touch of sweetness. With Burger King's signature fluffy eggs, just the right amount of creamy cheese, and a perfectly toasted, buttery croissant, this breakfast sandwich hits just about every mark.

The Sausage Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich is incredibly hearty and filling, but not excessively, like the Fully-Loaded Croissan'wich. It's a very soft sandwich all around, which might appeal to some. However, I think a little bit of crunch can do this sandwich some good. As much as I love the sausage, I'll admit that it's on the savory side for breakfast sausage, leaning a little more spicy than sweet. But if you want to sweeten up this breakfast sausage, a sprinkle of brown sugar can work miracles.

Finally, we come to the King's crown jewel of breakfast sandwiches; the most flavorful, balanced BK breakfast item with loads of playful textures and savory flavor. The Bacon Sausage Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich has a little bit of everything (except ham, which was for the best).

With all three meats, a Croissan'wich gets weighed down, a little too greasy, and much too salty. But the sausage and bacon combo worked well here, never masking the cheese and eggs while still delivering a wallop of meaty deliciousness. The sausage, egg, and cheese version of this sandwich almost made it to the top spot — it was just lacking something with a teensy bit of crunch. Here, the bacon delivers that crunch. It's not much, but it adds the little bit of texture that the previous sandwich was missing. It's plenty filling, but not quite as rich and oily as the Fully-Loaded Croissan'wich.

The bacon lacks flavor, but the sausage's potent seasoning makes up for it, letting the bacon act as just a texture enhancer. With melty cheese and bouncy eggs, this sandwich is like an explosion of both flavor and texture. It doesn't look the prettiest, but I'd still swear it came from an elegant bistro and not a Burger King kitchen.

To rank all the breakfast items at my local Burger King in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I tried each item when it was hot and fresh from the BK kitchen. I didn't add anything or alter any of the items in any way — I tried each as it appears on the menu.

I judged each breakfast based on objective factors like flavor, texture, and freshness. I ranked those with more interesting and balanced flavor profiles at the bottom of the list, and the blander foods that tasted more like pure salt than anything else at the top of the list. The fresher items made their way to the bottom, while the foods that tasted like they had been left out under the heat lamp too long (ahem, the biscuits) found their rightful place at the top of the list. The foods with interesting, playful textures — a soft, juicy bite with some crunch, for example — were ranked closer to the No. 1 spot, while the items with flat, boring textures stayed at the top.