5 Disadvantages Of Ordering The Filet-O-Fish

While it certainly is one of the most well-known fast food fish sandwiches, there's a case to be made that the popularity of the McDonald's Filet-O-Fish owes a lot to the ubiquity of McDonald's itself. You can't throw a french fry without it landing in a McDonald's parking lot so if you find yourself craving a fish sandwich, the Filet-O-Fish is likely the most readily available option. But just because it's widely available doesn't mean it's the highest equal quality option.

The Filet-O-Fish clearly has its fans, but it did nearly finish last in our fast food fish sandwich ranking and just barely cracked the top 30 in our ultimate ranking of McDonald's food items. The problem is that there are a handful of commonly reported downsides to the Filet-O-Fish that are tough to dispute, both when comparing it to other fast food fish sandwiches or just taken entirely on its own merits. Some issues are fixable, others less so, so here are the top five reasons that ordering a Filet-O-Fish doesn't always go swimmingly.

Many fast food fish sandwiches don't include cheese. Whether a fish sandwich in general should have cheese is a frequent topic of debate, but even those that vouch for it will often point to cheddar rather than American. However, McDonald's chose to not only put cheese on its Filet-O-Fish, but American cheese no less, and it's a baffling choice.

But don't just take our word for it. Professional chefs have said that American cheese does nothing for the flavor of the Filet-O-Fish. In fact, even McDonald's locations in other regions don't choose American cheese for their fish sandwiches. A Belgian-style Filet-O-Fish doesn't include cheese at all and neither does the French version.

One regional variant that does include cheese, the Norwegian variant, does so in combination with completely dressing the entire sandwich like a burger — so the American cheese makes more sense when paired with ketchup, mustard, and pickles than it does with tartar sauce.

First, the good news: McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich is made with wild-caught pollock, and it's sustainable, to boot. It's always positive when a fast food restaurant can clearly identify the type of protein being used in its food and that it was procured under recommended guidelines. But that doesn't mean that a Filet-O-Fish doesn't still contain some rather alarming ingredients.

For one, not to keep picking on that cheese, but processed American cheese is often called the worst type of cheese for gut health. As for the patty itself, it contains bleached wheat flour, which has been linked to higher risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Someone also found a parasitic worm in their Filet-O-Fish sandwich in March 2026, and while experts say that's a good thing because it means the fish is real and was caught in the wild, most can agree that we wouldn't want to find that in our next bite of a sandwich. 

It's not just the sandwich itself. Vice reported that a 2024 lab test revealed the boxes that Filet-O-Fish sandwiches come in contained several dangerous chemicals that had previously been banned by the FDA. And before you say, "Well you don't eat the box," these packaging chemicals have also been known to end up in the food that is housed within said packaging.

Seasoning-based trickery might ensure that the Filet-O-Fish is always golden brown in color, but with fast food, you can't always judge a book by its cover. Just because that patty is golden brown doesn't mean it is as fresh and crispy as that visual is meant to suggest — especially if you don't eat the sandwich the moment it is put in front of you.

Luckily, this is an issue that is fixable. In addition to eating it quickly, if you want to keep your Filet-O-Fish from turning soggy on your drive home, make sure your sandwich is always made fresh by simply requesting it. However, the most surefire way to ensure that a fast food worker makes your item fresh is to customize your order in some way, typically by adding or removing an ingredient. Try removing the cheese or adding a little extra. You could hold the tartar sauce and get a McNugget dipping sauces to use instead — we suggest the creamy chili for a kick of flavor.

McDonald's denies it, but some people believe that patties in the Filet-O-Fish are shrinking. It's also a common complaint that the patty never seems to sit right in the bun because the patty-to-bun ratio of a Filet-O-Fish is all wrong. However, some fans of the sandwich have said ordering two patties makes the ideal ratio of patty to bun, easily solving both of the aforementioned issues. 

Unfortunately, an actual Double Filet-O-Fish is hard to come by on the actual menu — but luckily, it's easy enough to just add a second patty to the regular Filet-O-Fish and make it a double, which can even be done through the app and doesn't require in-person ordering. Plus, a Filet-O-Fish with a second patty added is a better deal than ordering two single Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. This is another disadvantage that is easy enough to fix, but it still doesn't make it any less of a disadvantage to begin with.

Perhaps the biggest issue with ordering and eating a Filet-O-Fish from McDonald's is that nagging feeling that you could've had something better. We ranked a number of other fast food fish sandwiches as superior to the Filet-O-Fish, some of which are from chains with a pretty significant reach. In other words, there's a good chance you aren't all that far from a fast food joint with a better fish sandwich than the Filet-O-Fish.

If you choose to settle for convenience over quality, we all do it from time to time — but it's difficult to completely put it out of your mind that more delicious sandwiches do exist. Of course, there's always the option of just making your own Filet-O-Fish at home and making it even better by tailoring it to exactly how you want to eat it, what specific type of fish you want to use, and so on.