15 Hardee's Breakfast Sandwiches, Ranked Worst To Best

Once upon a time, Hardee's was the place I'd be most excited to hit on a road trip. To my juvenile eyes and taste buds, I didn't think I could get a bigger or better burger from another fast food chain. Of course, today I'm footing the bill for my fast food adventures, so now I think of Hardee's as one of the places I can get one of the most expensive burgers you can order.   

Monetary disillusionment aside, I hadn't checked into the Hardee's franchise in a while, and I was curious to see how the breakfast menu had evolved over time. A fast food chain may often be defined by its ability to build a burger, but breakfast is one of the times that I find myself most drawn to the drive-thru window. Right off the bat, the Hardee's breakfast menu overwhelmed me with options. There were multiple biscuits, brioche, and Frisco-style sandwiches to choose from, not to mention numerous proteins to cycle through as well. 

I'd be evaluating the flavor and texture of the proteins, calling out rubber eggs and limp bacon, scoring the cheese, and looking for the best bread of the bunch, from the sourdough Frisco to the home-style biscuit. I tried 15 items — yes, 15 — to get to the heart of the matter. Here's which sandwiches took top marks and which got left in the bag. 

I was pretty excited to eat the smoked sausage breakfast biscuit, mostly because it's a rarity to get link-style sausage at a fast food restaurant. For obvious ease of eating, the patty sausage reigns supreme at the drive-thru. But I wanted to see if it was possible to still use this kind of sausage for a proper breakfast sandwich without making a mess. 

Unfortunately, this sandwich failed on multiple fronts, and not just because it was messy to eat. Eating this was a disaster, with the soft biscuit crumbling to smithereens while the leathery sausage hardly responded to the gnashing of my teeth. But it's really the flavor that sunk this dish. The smoked sausage was a super salty take on kielbasa, a meat item I find better suited for barbecues and dinners rather than an early morning breakfast. Here, it proved the saltiest part of an extremely salty sandwich of biscuit, cheese, and egg. As a double bust in flavor and presentation, this was the worst of the bunch.  

I'm typically not a fan of ordering bacon breakfast sandwiches — or bacon-topped items in general — when dining at a fast food restaurant. Most of this has to do with texture. It's rare that a fast food spot can offer a piece of bacon that isn't limp and chewy or dry and leathery. Sausage always seems like a safer bet.

As far as the bacon goes, Hardee's isn't too bad on the texture scale. It's not too chewy, but it's still a bit limp for my taste. Speaking of taste, there were a couple of issues with the Hardee's breakfast biscuits that'll pop up again and again in this review. One major problem that affects all rankings is the saltiness of the biscuit. By itself, the biscuit is enjoyable, but once you add in extremely salty additions like bacon and cheese, you start to overwhelm the palate. A small positive point is that the egg seemed to be missing a fat pinch of salt. Only the thinness of the bacon saved this dish from being the worst pick, as the smaller sandwich real estate made it less salty than the smoked sausage one.

The amount of meat and cholesterol in this biscuit is indeed monstrous. Featuring ham, sausage, bacon, egg, and cheese, this biscuit is as tall as a burger and seems to pack almost as much meat. The price tag was no joke either, clocking in at an eye-watering $6.99. It reminded me of the good old days when I could expect Hardee's to deliver the meatiest drive-thru experience. Of course, just because you can pile a bunch of meat onto a breakfast biscuit doesn't necessarily mean you should. 

In this case, Hardee's should have probably shown more restraint. This biscuit was — you guessed it — salty. As salty as the last two were, nothing could prepare me for the salt coma awaiting me with this five-story breakfast catastrophe. The sausage and bacon were too salty as is, but when I got to that thick tier of ham, I basically lost all sense of taste for a moment. The best I can say about this biscuit is that it does have generous portions, which makes it a better protein option than the bacon or smoked sausage biscuit. Then again, you're definitely paying for it, and a salt bomb like this still deserves to be at the bottom of the pack. 

As mentioned before, I'm a sausage patty breakfast sandwich gal, as I think it tends to have a much more consistently pleasant texture and taste than bacon or ham offer. And Hardee's does have a pretty nice sausage patty on its roster. The standout element of it is the texture. This had a kind of soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture that reminded me a bit of scrapple. Guy Fieri may not be a fan of it, but I've always liked the savory pork loaf texture and flavor. 

Of course, even with a good sausage patty, this sandwich is hampered by the salt content. The American-style cheese works as salty glue, while the biscuit is even saltier bookends. Only the egg remains a slight reprieve from the salinity, though its rubbery texture underlines the much better texture of the sausage. While I liked the meat a lot better than the bacon, smoked sausage, and the triple threat of the Monster, this still couldn't overcome the overly salty biscuit base. 

I've only ever had omelets served on a plate before, never sandwiched between a biscuit. I was initially concerned that it would be an overflowing mess, with fillings spilling out on either side, making it impossible to eat while driving. But Hardee's managed to produce a fairly accessible and clean sandwich here, keeping the many bits and bobs inside the folded omelet square. 

While the eggs in the previous biscuits resembled chewy discs of rubber, the omelet filling here was perfectly tender with a cheesy, silken interior. This was one of the better bits of egg I've ever had from a fast food restaurant. But my praise ends here. The biscuit, ham, sausage, bacon, and cheese each contain too much sodium to let me enjoy that texture for very long. Sigh, it coulda been a contender. 

The Frisco is a signature sandwich style at Hardee's, trading a burger bun for sourdough bread. On the surface, using sourdough bread for a breakfast sandwich sounds like a delicious idea. It certainly makes for a more interesting breakfast sandwich concept than what many other fast food places are shoveling out. 

Alas, it remains more of a concept here because that salty ham and cheese cannot let any other flavor exist. The tang of the sourdough bread is nice on its own, but it's not really a good complement to cut through the sodium levels. It needed more sweetness from the ham to make it all work together. Still, I think that if you're a mega-ham lover, you'll find that this sandwich offers a better taste than the Monster Biscuit (the other item with ham) and isn't short-changed by the salty biscuit like all the others that came before it. 

The second Frisco on offer was the sausage take, which also included an extra dose of protein in the form of the egg and cheese. The middle featured all known elements — the cheese was too salty, the sausage was tender and well-seasoned, and the egg was on the rubbery side. But how did these fillings work with the Frisco bread? 

With the sausage iteration, I began to understand better the weakness behind the Frisco sourdough bread. If it's not griddled properly to golden perfection, it basically becomes an oil sponge that squishes rather than gives that toasty crunch. There's a time and a place for soft bread with your breakfast sandwich, but that's not what was intended for the Frisco, so it's definitely off-putting. The sausage patty worked better with the sourdough bread formula than the ham, but the salty and sour notes still made for an unappetizing combination.

It's interesting how a sandwich can only change the bread, and it can completely upend the status quo. I obviously prefer the flavor and texture of the sausage patty, but with the Frisco, bacon is the clear superior meat choice for two reasons. First, bacon works much better in a sandwich that has typical sandwich-shaped bread. With biscuits, brioche, and English muffins, the circular pattern is tailored to fit patties, but bacon tends to stick out at odd angles. Like with a classic BLT, bacon naturally fills the sandwich bread, covering it from corner to corner.    

Second, the thinness of the bacon slices also worked wonders for the overall flavor of this breakfast sandwich. Yes, it's salty, but that thin distribution made it much more palatable, and I was finally able to enjoy the potential of a breakfast sandwich that used sourdough as its bready bookends. This also had the best griddle cook on it, which definitely helped the overall texture. If you're devoted to the Frisco format, stick with the bacon order for breakfast. 

Hardee's continues its parade of carnivore delights with this dense fried pork chop served with creamy gravy and a big old biscuit. I was hoping that this would be like a creamy smothered pork chop, a Southern dish that basically uses gravy to turn the pork into fork-tender deliciousness, but that didn't happen here. 

Instead, the biscuit and the pork chop breading absorbed all the gravy, creating two gummy layers that insulated the two other, tastier textures. In fact, the gravy actually ruined the crispy potential of the pork patty, but at least half of it had a nice element of crunch. This is a pretty good fried pork chop as is, and its thick meaty center benefited from the saltiness of the biscuit. It's not a bad option if you're a pork lover, but there are much better deep-fried options on the horizon.  

Going into this review, I did not think I would find Hardee's fried chicken sandwiches rivaling the traditional breakfast options. Hardee's reputation is all about the beefy burger anyway — why expect a stunning chicken sandwich? But fried chicken is still a fiercely competitive corner of the fast food market, so I guess Hardee's was looking to up its game.

Yes, it did indeed up its game. Despite being one of the least expensive sandwiches on the list, this offered the largest and tastiest protein, serving up juicy fried chicken that had a nicely crisp exterior and a moist interior. Best of all, the thick chicken could handle the saltiness of the biscuit without bringing too much sodium on its own. Was it actually spicy? No, but I do think it was well-seasoned, and a packet of hot sauce can easily remedy the low heat level. Even with the misleading spicy label, this was the first sandwich on the Hardee's menu I actually enjoyed. 

Because one spicy fried chicken sandwich isn't enough, Hardee's decided to jump on the hot honey sauce trend and offer up this sticky beauty. Instead of packing the spice into the breading, this is essentially Hardee's typical hand-breaded chicken sandwich, only topped with hot honey. 

Like the gravy-saturated fried pork chop sandwich, the honey sauce tends to soak into the breading, making it a bit more soggy than one would like. Still, the breading for the fried chicken is pretty thick, so it maintains the crunch level pretty well. This is pretty stellar taste-wise as well. The hot honey sauce was really nice here, bringing a welcome dose of sweetness to the mix. And unlike the Spicy Hand-Breaded Chicken Biscuit, I could actually pick up a subtle level of heat here. Overall, this was a satisfying fried chicken biscuit with a genuinely tasty twist. 

Like its saucy cousin, the Salisbury steak, country fried steak is an acquired taste. Some people can't fathom why you would bread and deep fry a tough cut like cube steak. Those people probably haven't been to a good soul food restaurant in the South, though. I was skeptical that Hardee's could make one that wouldn't further deride the dish, because there's nothing worse than a bad country fried steak. 

Hardee's, again, surprised me with a pretty good country fried steak biscuit. The exterior was adequately crispy while the interior had a soft chew that didn't get too bouncy. It was, mercifully, lightly salted, so the high-sodium breakfast biscuit worked well with the overall flavor. I also have to give it points for novelty. Not many fast food joints — with the exception of KFC — offer country fried steak at all, and I appreciate Hardee's for breaking the mold. It may not be the best sandwich Hardee's has to offer, but it's definitely the most fun. 

When I first saw the brioche breakfast sandwich, I was a little insulted. I assumed that Hardee's was trying to pull a fast one on customers, topping the breakfast fillings with a burger bun and pretending that it was some clever new creation. However, this baby had me eating some humble pie alongside its tasty sandwich form. 

The biscuit was too salty, and the Frisco sourdough bread was too sour. But the brioche? It was just right. Beyond offering a soft and pillowy bed for the chewy egg, bacon, and cheese, the brioche bread introduced that crucial hit of sweetness I'd been craving from the get-go with all these salty ingredients. It almost reminded me of a croissant-style breakfast sandwich, with a buttery, subtly sweet pastry-like quality. Either way, I felt like Hardee's had finally hit its stride with this sandwich. 

Two of my favorite items from the Hardee's breakfast menu were at last united with the Brioche Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich. I had to kiss a lot of salty frogs to get to this brioche prince, but finally I had found a bread that's worthy of the excellent Hardee's sausage patty.

By no means is this a perfect breakfast sandwich, as some of the persistent shortfalls in the Hardee's breakfast line-up are still here. The egg is still a bit on the rubbery side, and I think the cheese is a little more than a gooey salt blanket. But the charm of this breakfast sandwich is that even these weak points could not keep me from enjoying the final product. It's worth adding to your morning commute if you like to break for a good sausage breakfast sandwich. Yet there was still one sandwich that packed a better, simple flavor without any of those particular hang-ups. 

I honestly didn't consider at any point before tasting these sandwiches that a fried chicken biscuit would take the top honors. I didn't really think that a chicken biscuit was a proper breakfast sandwich, because my one-dimensional mind thinks all breakfast meals have to include eggs. Luckily, Hardee's has a more advanced menu and a righteously good chicken biscuit to help set the record straight.

Please take a moment to look at the size of this fried chicken filet. This is larger and juicier than most of the fried chicken sandwiches I get at other fast food spots for lunch or dinner. The breading is thick, crunchy, well-seasoned, and the perfect counterpoint to a tender interior. The salty Southern-style biscuit was made for this chicken filet, helping to bring that saline punch to something that actually needed it. It's good enough to break out of the breakfast territory and into the legit lunch and dinner meal category. I'd like to add this humble little biscuit to the rapidly growing list of excellent chicken sandwiches served by non-chicken chain restaurants. At the very least, it converted me to the pro-chicken-breakfast-sandwich camp. 

My selection process was simple. I ordered every sandwich on Hardee's breakfast menu. I didn't get fancy with variations, ordering each with egg and cheese (if offered) and a plain order of each meat (no double meat options). I did my best to try each sandwich warm, gently reheating if necessary. 

For tasting, I considered each protein's texture individually and how it functioned with the specific bread used (biscuit, Frisco sourdough, or brioche). So if the bread should have been crunchy but wasn't (like the Frisco) or if the bacon lacked snap or the fried pork chop went gummy, I made sure to note it. I also evaluated how certain sauces affected the flavor and texture of the overall breakfast dish. Sometimes the sauce helped, and sometimes it hurt. Mitigating the salt level was a continuous theme, as the saltiness of the biscuit and proteins determined how high or low a dish ranked.

Occasionally, I noted whether it was or wasn't easy enough to eat in the car (these are fast food sandwiches intended to be enjoyed on the road, after all). I also considered cost as a factor, i.e., whether the sandwich delivered on the price point.