Jollibee‘s fast food biscuit topped a seven-chain ranking after writer Amanda Mactas worked her way through the breakfast menus of some of the United States’ most recognisable quick-service restaurants. The chain, which has a limited footprint compared with its rivals, came out ahead on flavour, texture and that elusive classic biscuit character.
How the Jollibee fast food biscuit took the top spot
Mactas described the Jollibee entry as the standout of the group: buttery flavour, a nicely toasted exterior and the kind of texture she was actually looking for. Having not grown up near one of the chain’s locations, she admitted she had underestimated it going in. The verdict was unambiguous: she intends to return.
KFC finished second. Its biscuit was light and pillowy with a toasted, buttery flavour that Mactas rated as top-notch. The one caveat was that the texture leaned slightly more towards bread than a traditional biscuit, but that was not enough to cost it a place near the summit.
Wendy’s came third, and shares something with the fourth-placed chain: both serve their biscuits halved and pre-buttered. At Wendy’s, that butter is a sweet honey variety. The biscuit itself was soft and tasty, though Mactas noted the honey butter masked some of the toasted flavour underneath.
Chick-fil-A landed fourth despite also arriving sliced and pre-buttered. The biscuit was soft and, by Mactas’s account, genuinely delicious. The reason it did not rank higher was texture: it did not read as a classic biscuit in the way the top three did.
The chains that fell short
Burger King placed fifth, though ordering a plain biscuit there requires a workaround. The item is not listed on its own; instead, Mactas ordered an egg and cheese biscuit and customised it to remove both toppings. The result was soft and pillowy, with a reasonable butter-and-salt balance, but the texture felt doughy rather than authentically biscuit-like.
Popeyes, despite its reputation for Southern-style food, came sixth. Mactas found the biscuit too dense and too dry, with a very crisp exterior that suggested it had spent longer in the oven than it should have. The flavour was acceptable but the overall experience did not match expectations.
KFC‘s biggest rival on the fried chicken side did not cover itself in glory here, and neither did McDonald’s, which finished last. Mactas is an avowed fan of the chain in general terms, but on plain biscuits it offered little in the way of distinct flavour, and the texture ran dense and chewy. Her recommendation, should anyone order one, is to use it as the base of a breakfast sandwich rather than eat it unaccompanied.
Two details from the test are worth noting beyond the rankings. Only Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s served their biscuits pre-sliced and buttered, a presentation Mactas singled out as a welcome touch. And while most chains limit biscuits to the breakfast slot, some on the list offer them across the full trading day, meaning the comparison was not always conducted on identical terms.
For anyone trying to replicate the top two results in a single outing, the practical gap between Jollibee and KFC is narrower than the ranking suggests: both delivered on flavour and both had some textural distance from the Southern ideal. The difference came down to the Jollibee biscuit hitting closer to the classic template that the other six chains were all, to varying degrees, falling short of.