Wendy's Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit - What To Know Before Ordering

We thought we had finally seen the end of the Chicken Sandwich Wars. Well, we hoped anyway. But alas, Wendy's has decided that February 2022 is the perfect time to prove that they are the company that should try to introduce improvements to the simple-seeming chicken sandwich, even though the initial flurry of fast casual restaurant sandwich debuts occurred in 2021.

Wendy's has added a Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich and a Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit to its regular and breakfast menus, respectively. The thrust against other, perhaps more successful chicken sandwiches, is apparent on inspection. "Others may do chicken sandwiches, but at Wendy's we actually craft chicken sandwiches with flavor," Carl Loredo, Wendy's Chief Marketing Officer, claimed in a press release. "The Hot Honey Duo brings the heat, and the sweet, to give our fans mouthwatering, all-day chicken sandwiches that are anything but McBland." Was that a dig at one of Wendy's competitors?

While the Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich has joined the daylong Made to Crave menu, the Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit has been launched to add a kick to Wendy's breakfast offerings. So, the question is — can Wendy's outmaneuver the competition with its new breakfast-focused chicken?

The one major thing the Chicken Sandwich Wars has been good about is straightforward labeling. The Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit is the first new addition to Wendy's breakfast menu since it launched its morning meals in 2020. This breakfast sandwich introduces the fast food chain customers to hot honey on a breakfast biscuit (per PR Newswire). Specifically, the morning treat consists of "an all-white meat breakfast chicken fillet drizzled with hot honey sauce and served on a warm, fluffy buttermilk biscuit." 

The item has been created to jump on one of the latest trends in the food industry — hot honey. As a matter of fact, Chief Marketing Officer Loredo states in the press release that "...our talented culinary team knew we could bring the Hot Honey trend to the table in a way no one else could." By mid-2020, this honey concept had already taken off, and for those who, thus far, have managed to miss it, hot honey is a sauce that mixes honey and chiles. In Wendy's case, it mixes honey with ingredients that include brown sugar, habanero pepper sauce, mango puree, banana puree, tamarind puree, and sugar for good measure.

If the combination of biscuit, chicken, and spiced up honey tempts you enough to consider ordering it, you should remember that the Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit is purely a breakfast menu item. What that means is that you can only get it in the sliver of morning hours that Wendy's serves breakfast.

According to Wendy's breakfast FAQs, these hours depend on the particular Wendy's from which you want to obtain your chickeny biscuit. Typically, the period for a Wendy's breakfast runs from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., though delivery starts at 8 a.m. It's important to note that these hours can vary between franchises. 

Once you have that time frame down, the biscuit sandwich will cost $3.19, however, if you do miss the window, you can still get the Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich for $5.99. You can order both either through the chain's drive-thru or through one of the many delivery apps that cater to Wendy's, which include the Wendy's app, DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, and Uber Eats.

Like many fast casual chains, the fried chicken items aren't typically touted for having the best nutrient profile. The Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit is no exception. In all fairness, the sandwich is not entirely devoid of nutrition. One Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit will fill you with 15% of your daily iron intake and 16 grams of protein. However, the same chicken-filled biscuit will also deliver 205 milligrams of cholesterol, 1240 milligrams of sodium, and 11 grams of saturated fat. For reference, the FDA recommends 300 milligrams of cholesterol, 2400 milligrams of sodium, and 20 grams of saturated fat — per day. 

In other words, that one sandwich almost single-handedly maxes your daily intake in these areas. It's important to note that those totals are just for one breakfast sandwich and doesn't include a side or a drink. While you might be hoping the new chicken biscuit off the Wendy's breakfast menu can be considered a part of a balanced breakfast, it doesn't appear to be the case.

Before heading out for an early morning Wendy's meal, you want to know how this sandwich fares compared to others.

According to an Uproxx review, the Wendy's Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit may not be worth the hype. Going in, the reviewer was optimistic. After all, combining biscuits with the fast food phenomenon of chicken sandwiches sounds like a tasty creation. Such optimism dwindled in the face of reality though. "My issue with Wendy's line of breakfast chicken sandwiches is the chicken itself," the reviewer wrote, claiming, that while Wendy's regular chicken sandwiches are good, the chicken used for the breakfast sandwiches tastes entirely different and not in a better way. The verdict — you should wait for 10:30 and pay that bit more for a better product. 

While less devastating, Master Influencer Magazine was also left unimpressed. Their issue was with the hot honey sauce, claiming it was sweet, but without spice. 

The Takeout agreed that the hyped sandwich was rather lackluster. However, they suggest ordering the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit instead and ask for hot honey sauce on the side. Then, once the extra sauce is spread on the sandwich, the chicken and biscuit are no longer dry. 

As already mentioned, the Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit was meant to give a new kick to Wendy's breakfast menu. Since the item only came to market in early February, there is still time for the biscuit to prove itself a winner. But if it continues to fail in wowing patrons, it leads to the question of how much the breakfast menu needs the item.

In March 2021, CNN reported that the Wendy's breakfast menu celebrated its first anniversary by noting how it made up 7% of all Wendy's sales and was expected to grow to 10% by the end of 2022. By November of 2021, the chain was the third best-seller in breakfast meals among its competitors. But considering that the breakfast Baconator is still a dominant presence in Wendy's morning products, customers may continue to flock to the tried and true classics.