Store-Bought Chicken Burgers Ranked Worst To Best

If you want to shake things up a bit at your next summer picnic, you might consider making chicken burgers instead of ham and cheese. But before you do, you'll need to ensure you're picking up the best brand available. A trip to the supermarket will reveal there's a wide variety of chicken burgers. Unfortunately, not all of them are worth spending money on, so choose wisely. Some come pre-cooked while others are raw. There are the frozen kind, but also a few refrigerated ones. Most chicken patties come with breading, but some don't. These burgers also range in flavor from Italian to Hawaiian to Southwestern. There are a few you can make on the grill or stovetop, but most packaging recommends using the oven, microwave or air fryer.

A taste test is the only way to sort through so much variety. So, I turned the oven on to 400 degrees and got out some paper and a pen. I wrote a list of what I wanted to judge about each product: taste, texture, the crispiness of the breading, size, ingredients, and price. If you'd like to know more about this process or how I selected the products for review, please read the methodology section at the end. The prices mentioned here are from my local grocery stores and a few from supermarket websites, so these may vary depending on location or date of purchase. Read on to find out more about the store-bought chicken burgers I tried, ranked from worst to best.

Banquet's Chicken Breast Patties appear low on this list because of their small size and funky taste. Each one of these breaded chicken burgers weighs just under 2.5 ounces which is a smaller portion size than most of the products included here. The taste is metallic and extremely salty. The breading has an orangish hue and black specks — likely pepper. Young, picky eaters may accuse you of serving them patties with dirt on them, though.

A bag of Banquet patties costs about $5 and contains 10 patties, a total of 24 ounces. The per-unit price comes out to around $.50 — one of the cheapest, but don't forget that these patties are also the smallest. That makes them better for kids if they can overlook the black speck and gives them a faster prep time than some other patties on this list. They taste best when baked in the oven, but even so the breading won't get crisp. It comes out about the same as when you zap this product in the microwave for a minute. A bit soggy, but never tough or chewy.

Kirkwood's Italian-inspired burgers are unpleasant to eat because of the grainy texture of the ground chicken and the strong taste. This is a let-down because the box looks fantastic. It promises asiago and fontina cheeses, and sun-dried tomatoes. When you bite into one of these patties, though, the flavor is jarring and acidic. It doesn't go well with lettuce and tomato or mayonnaise. Worse, the chicken meat has the texture of a thick mealy paste. There are a few good things about these burgers, though. For example, they don't have any breading on them so you can grill them if you want and gluten-free diners can eat them. If only the product tasted better, it would be a perfect alternative to offer beef-eschewing guests at a barbecue.

A box of six patties costs around $9 at Aldi — Kirkwood is one of the store brands there. Each burger weighs a third of a pound and with a price of about $1.50. That makes this serving size larger than the competition. Keep in mind, though, that this product is raw while most other companies pre-cook their patties. That means that when you prepare these, they'll lose some of that weight.

Walmart's store brand, Great Value, offers peppery chicken patties. Blander breaded patties tended to rank higher on this list and more flavorful options, like these, got lower rankings. That's because breaded chicken burgers are a food that's usually kid friendly, perhaps even designed with children in mind — they're basically a giant chicken nugget. Unfortunately, these Great Value patties had enough flavor to get my kids complaining and that worked against them. You take a bite of one of these patties and you'll feel the slightest sting about 30 seconds later. It's not a huge deal and some adults likely find it attractive. Picky kids, on the other hand, won't take a second bite. The substantial amount of chicken meat in these burgers — about half an inch — is a positive point. The breading is also thinner than some brands, which gives this product a great meat-to-breading ratio.

A bag of Great Value patties, weighing 23.8 ounces, sells for under $6 and provides nine burgers. That means each one is about 2.5 ounces and costs about $.65. That's one of the lowest prices you'll find, so if you don't care about them being peppery, and like a meatier chicken burger, this is a great deal.

The chickeny taste and texture are the best things about Amylu Caramelized Onion and Aged White Cheddar burgers. Some other burgers on this list didn't taste much like chicken or even seem like meat because of their texture, so these burgers stood out in that sense. Additionally, there's no breading on them or wheat in the ingredients, so people on a gluten-free diet can indulge. Unfortunately, Amylu added dairy to this recipe, so the same cannot be said of those who need to avoid dairy products. Like most other chicken burgers, these come pre-cooked, but unlike the competition, Amylu does not freeze its product. This may be one of the reasons these burgers have superior taste and texture. It also makes them easy to prepare whether it's on the stovetop or a grill for a backyard barbecue.

You can purchase this product at Costco for about $15. These patties come in a pack of eight quarter-pounders, and each piece costs just under $2 making this one of the most expensive products on this list. Although they taste great, you may prefer a different product from the same company even more.

Meijer's store brand patties took second place in this ranking because of their lower price and satisfyingly crunchy breading. The chicken in these tastes bland, but that's hard to notice when all your attention goes to the extra crispy breading on the outside. That could be off-putting to some people, so if you like a chicken burger where you can taste the meat, pick a different variety. If the breading is your jam, though, you'll like these. Try adding a slice of provolone cheese after you've flipped them for the last few minutes they're in the oven. The gooeyness of the cheese combined with the crunch of the breading is mind blowing.

A bag of Meijer chicken burgers weighs 26 ounces and contains 10 pieces for $6. That means each patty is 2.6 ounces and costs about $.60. So, this isn't the cheapest chicken burger out there, but it's about the same as Tyson and Great Value. The difference is this is a superior-tasting product. That more alluring flavor may have to do with how the companies manufacture the burgers. In this case, the ingredients on the back of the package are easy to understand and you could probably find most of them in your home kitchen. There are no additives or preservatives and that seems to shine through when you take a bite.

This review of chicken burgers started with a quest to find every variety I could. To do this, I visited Walmart, Kroger, Meijer, Costco, and Aldi. It also meant a suspicious glance from a shelf stocker when I exclaimed excitedly over finding Banquet patties at Kroger. That was probably the first time he'd ever seen anyone that thrilled to be buying chicken patties! I'd seen the product listed on Meijer's website, but hadn't found it in that store's freezer and was sadly preparing to write this article without it. Fortunately, Kroger stepped up. There were a few other brands, though, that I did miss out on reviewing. I couldn't get a hold of Kroger's store-brand chicken patties, and the same shelf stocker told me my local store doesn't sell them. Then, I chose to skip Kirkwood's breaded burgers in favor of trying the flavored Hawaiian and Italian. Staying within budget means making hard choices sometimes. With those two exceptions, I was able to try every chicken burger available at my local grocery stores.

I prepared the burgers in two waves for taste testing. First, I baked the seven breaded burgers in the oven. That was tricky because cook times ranged from 12 to 20 minutes depending on the size and brand. I set the oven at 400 degrees. I was careful to flip each patty halfway through and take each out at the time its packaging recommended. There was some complex timer maneuvering going on in my kitchen, but everything worked out for the best. Then, I made the Amylu and Kirkwood burgers on the stovetop in a frying pan as per the directions on their packaging. Eleven patties are a lot for one person to eat, so I took a bite or two of each and compared the experience. I paid attention to the texture of the breading and the chicken. The flavor was also an important point. I noted how thick the chicken patties were in comparison to the breading on the outside. Finally, I ranked each burger according to how likely I was to buy it again. Of course, there were still quite a few burgers hanging out in my freezer after the taste test. My family got to eat them a couple of times for lunch over the week I was writing this ranking and my children's reactions to some of the products added extra insight to some of the descriptions here.