The 13 Most Iconic Texas State Fair Foods Of All Time

The State Fair of Texas is a 24-day event running each fall. Taking place annually in Dallas, Texas, the event is one of the largest and longest running state fairs in the country, attracting over two million visitors annually for family-friendly fun. Guests can enjoy a Texas-sized Ferris wheel, a neon lights-filled Midway, a livestock and auto show, the 55-foot-tall Big Tex cowboy — which welcomes visitors with his signature "howdy folks" — and lots of tasty State Fair of Texas food.

No carnival is complete without traditional fair fare, like funnel cakes and giant smoked turkey legs. However, if that's all you eat, you've missed one of the essential reasons to attend. Just over 20 years ago, the State Fair of Texas became known as the "Fried Food Capital of Texas," birthing dozens of iconic foods dunked in bubbling vats of hot oil. While not every iconic food from there is fried, a significant number are.

Either way, many of these dishes have been replicated by other vendors and at other fairs. But when first introduced at the State Fair of Texas, these iconic bites surprised and delighted fair-goers, including myself. As a former Dallas resident and State Fair attendee, trying the new fair food was a delicious annual event that locals and visitors looked forward to all year. The 2026 event runs from September 25 through October 18, and these iconic dishes are reason enough to attend.

Nothing beats walking towards the daily pig races while enjoying a Fletcher's Original Corny Dog. The Fletcher family makes around 80% of its annual income selling their iconic corny dogs during the State Fair's run, and the family-owned business has been selling corny dogs at the Texas State Fair since the 1940s.

Although Fletcher's has gone more mainstream — offering its corny dogs through Goldbelly and running a food truck at Dallas's Klyde Warren Park – co-owners and siblings Aaron and Amber Fletcher return to Fair Park with their family to sell the famous corny dogs at the fair each year. It's a smart move, as they sell upwards of 550,000 of them annually, or roughly 1,000 corny dogs an hour. 

What makes Fletcher's so good? Everything is handmade and local, as it was when brothers Carl and Neil Fletcher invented the original creation, cementing their place at the State Fair in 1942. Each dog is batter-dipped by hand into a cornmeal mix from a Shawnee Mill in Shawnee, Oklahoma, using sausage from Syracuse Sausage in Ponder, Texas. There's perfect balance to each corny dog, with a crispy outside and chewy inside. The sweet, savory, fried cornmeal coating's flavor is complemented by the juicy hot dog that has just the right snap. To finish, add a dab of mustard for a tangy topping to elevate the corny dog's flavor.

While there have always been noteworthy vendors at the State Fair of Texas, the fair's leadership launched the Big Tex Awards in 2005. Knowing there always needs to be something new to attract visitors to the fair, the inaugural event's theme was Elvis. Abel Gonzales Jr. was a young vendor and full-time computer analyst at the time. For the inaugural competition, Gonzales took a classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich, added a banana, then deep fried.

It was a play on Presley's favorite ultra-sweet "Fool's Gold" sandwich. Gonzales immersed the sandwich in a sweet pancake batter and plunged it into a boiling bath of oil. The result was a golden-brown, deep-fried, sweet and savory sandwich delight that was crunchy-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside. To finish, he added a dusting of powdered sugar.

Gonzalez had grown up attending the State Fair with his family every year since his birth in 1969. It was a meaningful annual event that allowed his family to come together for worry-free fun. As a seasoned fair-goer, he knew the flavors that attendees would enjoy. He knew he had a deep-fried winner in combining a classic American school lunch item with the King of Rock and Roll's favorite snack. His creation won the Best Taste category at the first Big Tex Awards. Today, Gonzales sells around 20,000 fried PB&J sandwiches annually on average, topping each with a squeeze of additional jelly.

Over the years, other vendors have followed with whimsical, cookie-dough inspired knock-offs of Abel Gonzales Jr.'s 2007 Big Tex Awards Best Taste dish, including various other Big Tex Award contenders. However, the State Fair's original Fried Cookie Dough remains a fan favorite because it is truly that good.

Gonzales begins with balls of homemade pecan, coconut, and chocolate chip cookie dough that he coats in a light batter, creating a golden-brown, cake-like exterior once fried. When the cookie dough emerges from the fryer, they are warm and crunchy outside, and creamy, melty, and gooey on the inside. They're just like fresh-from-the-oven cookies (it's safe to eat this cookie dough), and each order is topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

To ensure Gonzales had the workforce to produce upwards of 22,000 cookie dough orders each year in the early days, he enlisted his extended family to help him fry his eclectic creations. It brought the family together at the State Fair as they were when Gonzales was a child. Try them with one of Gonzales' other Most Creative award winners, Fried Coca-Cola.

Abel Gonzalez Jr. enjoyed a series of early wins in the Big Tex Awards, including in 2005, 2006, and 2007. However, it was his fourth award during the 2009 competition that made the Texas State Fair vendor known as "Fried Jesus" the most famous. The dish earned Gonzales national notoriety, along with the ability to quit his day job to focus on food full-time, after he invented deep-fried butter in 2009.

Yes, you heard right. In his adventurous experimental efforts to push the creative envelope, his 2009 Big Tex awards entry was an unctuously delicious ball of fried butter. While he didn't literally throw a pat of butter into the deep fryer, he came close. Instead, the creative genius wrapped a frozen ball of whipped butter in a yeasty, butter-infused dough. When deep-fried, it has a crunchy golden-brown exterior, a soft biscuit-like interior, and a gooey, rich, melting butter center. It was like the most perfect homestyle roll slathered in butter.

Gonzales offers the bready treat in four flavors, including plain, garlic, cherry, and grape, with the flavoring folded into the butter itself. His frustration at losing a "Fire and Ice" fried-and-frozen dish the year before pushed him to rethink his 2009 entry, giving the Big Tex Awards judges the most over-the-top fried dish he could conceive in deep-fried butter. His dish won the Most Creative award, and Gonzales sold roughly 35,000 orders — or 140,000 fried butter balls — at that year's festival.

One of the classic dishes you can find at every carnival, festival, and fair is a funnel cake. However, Fernie's Funnel Cakes isn't just any old version of the fair staple. In my opinion, it's the best. The dish has been a part of the offerings at the State Fair of Texas since the 1980s, when Wanda "Fernie" Winter and her husband, John, offered their first funnel cakes after trying a version while on a trip to Missouri. Over time, it's become one of those dishes you have to have at the State Fair.

Winter's daughters, Christy Erpillo and Johnna McKee, run Winter Family Concessions LLC, the parent of Fernie's Funnel Cakes. While the fair is only 24 days, they spend the entire year coming up with new recipes and ideas to introduce to fair-goers and the Big Tex Awards judges, which has served them well in the past.

In addition to selling thousands of funnel cakes, sweet and savory treats, and cocktails throughout the fair, Fernie's has won the Big Tex Award three times for dishes like its fried peaches and cream and Holy Moly Carrot Cake Roly. Still, Fernie's giant original funnel cake is always the best. Served piping hot, there's just the right amount of chew, complemented by the ideal crunch and plenty of powdered sugar.

It baffles the mind to think of frying a liquid. However, Abel Gonzales Jr. had mastered the ability with his fried Coke in 2006. So, in 2010, long-time vendor and amateur chef Mark Zabel took the idea to the next level, creating liquified Fried Beer. Libations are available throughout the fair, and few things are as thirst-quenching as a beer. However, how do you fry beer? Thanks to the State Fair of Texas, we now know. 

Zabel was a longtime State Fair concessionaire. His father opened a Belgian waffle stand there in the 1960s, which he passed down to Zabel. He spent over two years of trial and error turning the fried beer concept into reality before entering the dish into the 2010 competition. He even worked with a food scientist to try to figure out how to fry a liquid, resulting in an unsuccessful effort. Instead, Zabel found inspiration in something he saw his 4-year-old child doing, which gave him the key to creating the dish.

What he saw remains top secret. However, he was able to create a well-sealed ravioli-shaped dough that could hold Zabel's beer of choice, Guinness, without leaking or breaking. The outcome was a fried bite that tastes like a warm pretzel and a beer, often served with a side of straight-from-the-can cheese for dipping. As it's pure liquid inside, you have to be careful biting into Fried Beer; otherwise it will spill all over you. His inventive dish won the 2010 Big Tex prize for Most Creative.

Jack's French Frys is a State Fair classic up there with Fletcher's and Fernie's. Jack's has been a part of the State Fair of Texas for over 80 years, serving buckets of some of the best french fries. They're large enough for sharing and easy to hold in one hand as you play balloon darts with the other. While Jack's offers a variety of toppings on its fry buckets, the original is still the best because the french fries are that good.

This is because Jack's hand-cuts the potatoes for its fries daily; nothing is pre-made and out of the bag here. The Pyland family has been serving fries at the State Fair since 1945, using a family recipe that called for hand-cut fries. Americans had gained an appetite for the fried treat during World War I when American soldiers were stationed in Belgium. These soldiers were introduced to the fried potato delicacy, and brought it home with them after the war.

Jack's French Frys leaned into the idea, offering deep-fried potatoes with a crisp, light exterior that's equally soft and fluffy on the inside. To this day, Jack's French Frys are still some of the most popular items every year, with Jack's serving about 40,000 orders during the fair. Add a sprinkle of malt vinegar for an extra kick.

The Armadillo is James Barrera's ode to the small mammal, and won the Most Creative Big Tex Award in 2021. This ice-cream sandwich is almost too cute to eat, but its creamy, crunchy, ice-cold flavor hits the spot on a hot September Texas day.

Barrera has been a State Fair vendor for almost 30 years, opening his stand in 1997. It's his passion, dedication, and drive that have kept him crafting sweet treats and Tex-Mex specialties for so many years. The Armadillo isn't Barrera's first foray with ice cream at the State Fair of Texas, either, as his Viva Las Vegas Fried Ice Cream won Most Creative award at the inaugural Big Tex Awards in 2005. While Barrera didn't invent the sweet and crispy ice-cream treat, his unique combination of flavors and textures earned him a top prize.

The fried Armadillo seems like a simple dessert on the surface. The dessert sandwiches homemade sweet, cold cookie butter semifreddo between two deep-fried, nine-banded armadillo-shaped, churro-like cookie fritters. This is where the treat takes an unexpected, and deliciously decadent turn. Barrera tops the treat with a sweet and savory mix of powdered sugar and powdered butter. You might not think a dusting of that combination would make such an impact. However, it does. The powders almost melt into the just-out-of-the-fryer Armadillo, creating a sticky, umami-rich topping on the treat. If you're lucky, Barrea may serenade you while the treat is frying.

Fletcher's Original Corny Dogs knew they were doing something right when they brought their cornbread-coated hotdog on a stick to the State Fair of Texas. Serving food on a stick is the ideal way to eat at a fair, after all. It makes items portable and easy to eat as you weave your way from one food vendor to the next with highly coveted plush toy tucked under your arm. In 2024, Issac Russo leaned into this meat-on-a-stick concept, creating a new type of candied bacon.

He began with a 12-inch, thick-cut, honey-smoked slab of bacon, which he skewers, dips into a sugary candy glaze, and swirls into the inside of a pink cloud of a classic carnival snack: cotton candy. Right before serving, Russo torches the fluffy confection, creating a caramelized cotton candy glaze on the outside of the bacon. The resulting dish brings two classic treats together, creating iconic flavors that evoke nostalgic childhood memories.

The State Fair thought so, as well, with the dish winning the Big Tex Choice Award for Best Taste – Sweet in 2024. It's a pricey treat; it was about $18 in 2025, compared to a Fletcher's Original Corny Dog for $8. But it's hard to beat addictively sweet and savory candied bacon.

Bacon makes everything better, while chicken-fried steak is an iconic Texas food staple. So, in 2008, Big Tex Best Taste winner Glen Kusak brought the two Texas favorites together. Kusak was a long-time State Fair vendor, but 2008 marked his first entry into the food competition. To his delight, it turned out well as he won for his savory chicken-fried bacon.

With a crispy double-dipped batter and breading, plus a smoky, spicy, meaty filling of thick-cut, peppered bacon, this smoky snack is a deep-fried carnivore delight. Kusak serves the sinful snack with a side of ranch or honey mustard for dipping. I recommend the ranch as it adds just the right herbaceous and spicy notes to enhance the bacon's peppery qualities.

The owner of Farm Pac and Yoakum Packing Co. has delighted fair attendees over the years with his wife Sherri Pietsch Kusak and son Tyler, offering items beyond the bacon. This includes signature smoked turkey legs, smoke-crusted, shredded brisket known as Injectable Great Balls of BBQ (a 2016 Big Tex finalist) and Brisket and Brew Stuffed Pretzel (a 2025 finalist). While the new creations are tasty to try, the crunchy, smoky, and completely Texan chicken-fried bacon remains a favorite.

Bacon isn't the only thing that's received a crunchy, double-dipped breading before a deep-fry at the State Fair. Items such as chicken, meatloaf, turkey ribs, and baked potatoes have also received a chicken-fried coating over the years. Still, few commanded as much attention, or as high a price, as Abel Gonzalez Jr.'s 2015 dish. The Big Tex Award finalist was one of the most expensive food items ever sold at the fair. Costing 60 tickets — or the equivalent of $30 – Gonzales debuted a chicken-fried lobster tail with lemon-butter Champagne gravy.

At the time, the highly creative vendor had not seen a Big Tex win since his 2012 Most Creative Award win for Fried Jambalaya, after riding an early wave of award-winning years. But the sophisticated entry proved to be an immediate hit even with the high price tag, proving fair-goers are satisfied with fried butter one minute and fried lobster the next. After all, the dish sold out by 1 p.m. on day one of the fair.

The Stifflers did not invent deep-fried Oreos, but they did perfect the stuffed cookie treat. Rick and Tammy Stiffler of Stiffler's Concessions had their first date at the State Fair of Texas almost 50 years ago. And for over 30 years, they have been making sweet treats, like deep-fried Double-Stuffed Oreos, in the same place that date took place.

Deep-fried Oreos were added to the menu in the early 2000s as the growing trend for fried treats was becoming crowd favorites. The cookies are dipped in a doughnut-like batter and deep-fried until golden brown, creating a crisp exterior and chewy, melty, sweet cookie interior. Stiffler's chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies are also fan favorites, while items like fried s'mores and fried lemonade have been Big Tex Awards finalists. Of course, its gooey and chocolatey deep-fried, Double-Stuffed Oreos are reason enough to visit the State Fair each year. Just be prepared to wait in line, as Stiffler's sells over 86,000 of the deep-fried delicacy each year.

It should be clear by now that Texans love deep-fried foods, including an appetizer found on many Dallas menus: fried pickles (typically served with a side of ranch). In 2022, Pizza by the Giant Slice debuted Deep Fried Pickle Pizza at the State Fair of Texas. While you can also enjoy a non-fried pickle pizza, why would you? Including the fried pickles, instead of the fresh baby dills, gives the pie incredible texture and an added dose of richness.

The pizza begins with a hand-tossed dough that is topped with a creamy dill-flavored ranch sauce, an abundance of mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and of course, crispy dill pickles. Since its introduction, the combination of tangy, crunchy dill pickles, slightly spicy ranch sauce, and gooey, melting cheese has become one of the most recent favorites for fair-goers, with many calling it (and the non-fried pickle option) one of the must-try bites at the State Fair.