Wendy's Pretzel Baconator Review: The Fancy Bun Doesn't Add Much

When the Baconator first hit the fast food scene in 2007, it seemed like an absurd novelty. The ridiculous name, an obscene amount of bacon, and bro-centric marketing made it a true outlier in 2000s food culture. But as the Baconator has established itself as a foundational part of the Wendy's menu over the years (and as fast food offerings have drifted closer and closer to self-parody), this towering meat mountain feels less dangerous and exciting than it used to be.

Perhaps sensing a need for some freshening-up, Wendy's has released a new limited-time-only Baconator variant: the Pretzel Baconator. As you can probably guess from the name, it's a Baconator, but in a pretzel bun. Having already confirmed that the Baconator looks nothing like it does in ads, I was primed to see if switching out the bread was the bold change this burger needed to dominate the 2020s. After sampling the Pretzel Baconator, I can confidently say that it's fine, but not great — just like its older brother.

If you've had the standard Baconator before, the build of the pretzel version will look very familiar. You've got two never-frozen, 100% beef patties that total up to half a pound of beef (before they're cooked — they shrink a bit on the griddle). The patties are seasoned simply with salt, and each one is topped with a slice of melted American cheese. Of course, the bacon is the star of the show. Wendy's advertises this sandwich as having six strips of applewood smoked bacon, but it's actually more like three strips of bacon that have each been cut in half. Other than that, the only other components of the Pretzel Baconator are generous schmears of mayonnaise and ketchup and the pretzel bun. There are no vegetables, pickles, or other condiments to break up the meaty assault.

The pretzel bun is the only aspect of this sandwich that sets it apart from the regular Baconator. Its dark, burnished exterior is achieved by treating the outside of the bun with sodium hydroxide, A.K.A. lye, which is often used as a drain cleaner because of its intensely corrosive properties. While that might sound like a scary ingredient to include in a fast food menu item, it's the traditional way pretzels get their brown sheen, and it's perfectly safe in food when used correctly. To make the bun even cuter, it's scored with an "x" on top that makes it look like a hot cross bun.

The Wendy's press release about the Pretzel Baconator describes it as a limited-time offering, but it's not clear exactly how long the sandwich will last on the chain's menu. It debuted on November 28, and from November 29 to December 3, you can add this sandwich to your order for free if you buy $20 or more worth of food from Wendy's using Uber Eats. That promotion might only last for a few days, but I imagine that the sandwich itself will stick around for at least a little while longer — though you may still want to rush out and buy one soon if you're dead set on trying it before it's discontinued. The press release doesn't say anything about this item being confined to participating Wendy's locations only, so it's safe to assume you can score the Pretzel Baconator at practically any Wendy's in the U.S.

If you do order it, expect to pay a premium. At my local Wendy's the sandwich cost $10.99 before tax, a dollar more than the base-model Baconator. With tax, the total works out to over $12 for the sandwich alone — a combo would run you $15.59 before tax. However, I do live in an area where fast food is expensive, so the Pretzel Baconator might be a bit cheaper in your neck of the woods.

This sandwich is the only item on the current Wendy's menu that's served on a pretzel bun, but this special bread has been cycling in and out of the brand's restaurants since it was introduced in 2013. One popular menu item that recently utilized a pretzel bun was the Pretzel Bacon Pub Cheeseburger, which debuted as a limited-time item in 2020 and returned to Wendy's for another temporary run in 2022.

Compared to the Pretzel Bacon Pub Cheeseburger, the Pretzel Baconator is a little boring and basic. The former item contained Muenster cheese, warm beer cheese sauce, bacon, pickles, and fried onions, while the latter, as we discussed, is just a regular Baconator dressed in different clothes. The new sandwich joins another Baconator variant on Wendy's permanent menu, Son of Baconator. The chain seems to have a thing for bacon; by my count, eight of the restaurant's 18 total burger options come standard with the crispy strips of cured pork.

I'll let you scroll back up and read the description of the sandwich and guess what the nutrition stats are like. Do you have an answer? Buckle up, because the real figures might be even more intense than you imagined.

The Pretzel Baconator (the sandwich alone, mind you — this doesn't include fries, soda, or a Frosty) contains 1,050 calories. That's more than half of what many fully-grown adults need to eat in a day. Its 1,630 milligrams of sodium are over two-thirds of the FDA-recommended daily maximum for someone on a 2,000-calorie diet. The sandwich also delivers almost an entire day's worth of fat for the average person — a Pretzel Baconator has 71 grams of fat, 27 of which are saturated. The daily value for total fat on a 2,000-calorie diet is 78 grams, and the allowance for saturated fat is only 20 grams.

In other words, the Pretzel Baconator is probably better as an occasional treat than as a staple of anyone's diet. Interestingly, it has slightly higher calorie, fat, and sodium counts than the O.G. Baconator — the pretzel bun must be heavier than a standard Wendy's burger bun.

I'm not convinced that the Pretzel Baconator justifies its high price tag and eye-popping nutritional facts. Despite the sky-high sodium content, the beef patties tasted bland and underseasoned. The bacon was cooked to a pleasant shatteringly crisp state, giving the sandwich some much-needed texture, but it, too was perplexingly flavorless. The most assertive elements of the sandwich were, surprisingly, the American cheese and mayonnaise.

The Pretzel Baconator inherits the classic Baconator's fundamental problem, which is that it's unbalanced. Without fresh vegetables, getting through all the meat feels like a slog. Fortunately, you can customize your burger by adding lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle, all free of charge; I'd definitely do this if I ordered it again. 

Meanwhile, the pretzel bun, which is this menu item's entire reason for existing, fades into the background. When I picked off chunks of it to eat on its own, the bread had a pleasant pretzel flavor, but with all the meat and toppings, it may as well have been any other hamburger bun. People who are already Baconator fans will enjoy the pretzel version, but it's not going to lure me away from my favorite Wendy's items.