Popeyes Vs Dave's Hot Chicken: Who Makes The Best Spicy Chicken Sandwich?

The release of the Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich in 2019 belongs in the annals of fast food history. It set off an industry-wide sprint to introduce competing products, a period now referred to as the Chicken Sandwich Wars (yes, really). Did the sandwich get too much hype? Perhaps, but it remains a menu staple, and even has a spinoff. Popeyes also offers a spicy version of the original that promises all the same crunch with some Cajun heat.

Compared to the fast food giant that is Popeyes, Dave's Hot Chicken is an upstart. It started as an outdoor fryer setup in a Los Angeles parking lot in 2017 and has grown into a chain with over 400 locations globally. And while Popeyes offers an array of Cajun-style chicken and seafood items, Dave's Hot Chicken mostly focuses on, well, hot chicken. Specifically, Nashville hot chicken, a style known for its radioactive-red glow and serious spice.

And with that, the stage is set: Two chicken chains. Two spicy chicken sandwiches. Who will come out on top? I brought home one of each and got to work. I was looking for moist chicken, tasty and well-balanced toppings, a well-constructed stack of ingredients, and, of course, some heat. Which prevailed in this trial by fire?

Both sandwiches were purchased within 10 minutes of each other and eaten within 20 minutes of purchase. I did consider travel as a possible influence on factors like texture. Popeyes does not offer any spice-level modification to its sandwich; Dave's has a heat scale, and the consumer must choose an option. I chose "medium" in hopes of creating the best overall matchup.

Most of the criteria I used for this taste test were the same ones I would use for any sandwich: I looked for well-distributed, balanced ingredients; an easy-to-handle item that didn't make a mess; and elements that tasted good both individually and as part of an overall flavor profile.

As this was specifically about chicken sandwiches, I looked for chicken pieces with a crispy, well-seasoned coating and a juicy interior. Because it was also specifically about spicy chicken, I evaluated not just the sandwich's heat level, but which elements contributed to it. Both sandwiches were comparable in price and size, so cost and relative value weren't factors in this matchup.

I was in my 20s when the Popeyes chicken sandwich debuted in 2019, so yes, I have had it before. I have also had its Spicy Chicken Tenders (they actually may be my favorite chicken item on the menu). So I figured the Spicy Chicken Sandwich would be something of a mashup between those two products.

This turned out to be not quite true. Like the Original Chicken Sandwich, the piece of chicken was super crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. It was nice and big, and while some sections were thicker than others, every bite was substantial. As with the original sandwich, the brioche bun was soft and buttery, but sturdy enough to hold up to the other ingredients.

But unlike the spicy chicken tenders, this fried chicken was just ... not spicy. It tasted basically identical to the original, non-spicy Popeyes chicken, at least to me. It seems the main source of heat in this sandwich was the spicy mayo. But the mayo had a warmth that hardly qualified as heat, and it was barely on the sandwich at all. The pickle slices — to me, a key cooling element of any spicy chicken sandwich — were so thin that they were negligible, not that they needed to cool much of anything. It's a good sandwich, but it is not spicy.

Strictly speaking, Dave's doesn't call this a sandwich, but a "slider." When I think of a slider, I think of those tiny little things you may get on a catering tray or at White Castle. This is a full-sized, split bun with a bunch of stuff in the middle; this is a sandwich.

That said, it lacked some key factors of a successful sandwich. For one thing, the bun and the chicken were so different in shape and size that they felt almost unrelated. A big piece of chicken is great, but when it's so much bigger than the bun, you end up taking a lot of bites of plain chicken. It was hard to get a bite with all the ingredients; plus, some of them, like the spicy sauce and pickles, soaked the poor bun and nearly dissolved in my hands.

But when it came to the actual taste, this sandwich began to shine. The chicken was well-seasoned and crunchy, and the Nashville-style hot chicken spice blend thoroughly coated, bringing the right balance of warm, tingly, numbing heat. The spicy mayo topping brought a smoky, creamy element. The pickles were thick-cut and a perfect tangy complement to the spicy chicken. The kale slaw was scant but earthy and refreshing, and it contributed to the sandwich's overall well-balanced flavors and textures. It's just a shame the ingredients themselves couldn't be better balanced in the overall composition.

Some taste test matchups are easy to call, like my Raising Cane's versus Popeyes tender test. But this one was not so easy. Both sandwiches shone in completely different ways. After far more consideration than I ever thought I would give to chicken sandwiches, I determined that Dave's Hot Chicken comes out on top.

Look, Popeyes makes a great chicken sandwich. It's big, crunchy, delicious, and tender. It's easy to eat and holds together, key aspects of any sandwich. But this spicy sandwich, while tasty, doesn't deliver on spice. I'm no let's-go-nuclear-spicy person; I don't need my nose running and my eyes burning to call something spicy. But the chicken wasn't spicy at all, and I think that's a key issue. Spicy mayo doesn't make a spicy chicken sandwich. Not to mention the mayo was barely there.

As a sandwich, the Dave's Single Slider has some serious structural shortcomings. The tender didn't fit in the bun, not even close, and the bun couldn't hold up to the sauce, pickles, and slaw. It was almost impossible to get a bite with every item on the sandwich. That said, I still sought that bite desperately because everything was tasty. Most importantly, every ingredient is meant to complement the dish's key element: spiciness. When it comes to constructing a good sandwich, Popeyes succeeds while Dave's falls apart (literally). But Dave's Hot Chicken brings the heat — and it's delicious, too.