One Simple Ordering Tip Makes Publix Chicken Tender Subs 99% Tastier

The best chicken tender subs are irresistible, with the salty, crunchy fried chicken and soft bread coming together to deliver a deeply satisfying bite. The worst ones, meanwhile, are a soggy, flavorless mess. The deli section at Publix is renowned for its sandwiches, but its chicken tender sub can be a bit hit-or-miss. But there's one simple ordering tip that makes it 99% tastier, and that's asking for the fried chicken to be tossed in a sauce.

Tossing chicken tenders in sauce was one of our five ordering tips to help you build the perfect Publix sub. The menu itself has a few options, including a sweet and spicy chicken tender sub that features sriracha sauce, a hot honey chicken tender sub that has a honey and cayenne sauce, and even a chicken bacon ranch tender sub, which uses tenders drizzled with buttermilk ranch dressing. Outside of these, you can ask your server to toss the fried chicken in any of the sauces they use on the chicken wings. According to Redditors, some of the favorites are garlic parm, mild/hot Buffalo, and spicy gold barbecue.

"Imo It's not a chicken tender sub unless [it's] tossed in chipotle and ranch. Or wing sauce and ranch," one customer said on Reddit. "Just my opinion but if you haven't tossed the tenders you are missing out."

Despite being extremely popular, the chicken tender sub at Publix splits opinions. The chicken tender sandwich finished dead last when we ranked Publix subs earlier this year, with our expert saying the tenders suffered from "both over breading and under seasoning, making each bite of the sandwich a dry, bland slog."

Plenty of Publix fans online feel the sandwich has gone downhill. "I used to love those subs, but don't even bother ordering them anymore," one Redditor posted, with another saying the tenders were always dry. One sandwich sleuth went as far as to suggest what time you ordered your chicken tender sub was a key factor. "9 a.m. is probably the best time," they wrote, before explaining their theory: "[Two] hours after the store is open so they had time to fry some and not give you leftovers from the night before or something that was sitting all day drying under a heat lamp."

However, given that some of the best fast food chicken sandwiches have awesome upgraded versions, why not this supermarket one? Publix regulars certainly seem to have their own special takes on the chicken tender sub, from Asian barbecue sauce with chipotle, gouda, ranch, and four toasted jalapeños, to cheddar, mayo, peppers, cucumbers, and spinach. If you've never had a Publix sub before, the experiment is worth a shot, given that this sandwich is one of the many must-buys for first-timers at Publix.