Review: Wendy's - BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad

Wendy's new BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad features fire-roasted corn, diced tomatoes, applewood-smoked bacon, chopped grilled chicken breast drizzled with a honey barbecue sauce, shredded cheddar cheese, and a field green-lettuce blend, served with BBQ Ranch dressing.

I picked up a full-size salad (it's also offered in a half size) for $4.29 after a $2 off coupon.

The barbecue sauce drizzled on top of the chicken was really sweet with a moderate amount of tang. It was pretty overpowering and I probably could have just eaten the salad without dressing because of it.

The BBQ Ranch seems to be the same sauce even mixed with ranch. The combination of the two make for an almost sour top note that I didn't care for. It seemed a little redundant with the barbecue sauce and I used it very sparingly. A plain ranch dressing probably would have been better.

There was a whole chicken breast filet and it was moist with a nice flavor. It could be cut up a little better though, as quite of a few of the pieces were still stuck together.

I liked that there was corn but it was weirdly devoid of its natural sweetness and mostly flavorless as a result. It didn't seem to be "fire-roasted." The diced tomatoes were a little sparse and also similarly flavorless.

The shredded cheddar added needed flavor and was moist, but like the corn and tomatoes, there wasn't too much to go around.

The field green-lettuce blend was mostly iceberg lettuce, which is nice and crisp but, like a lot of the salad, light in flavor department. There wasn't enough field greens to power through the barbecue flavor.

Wendy's bacon is tasty but was wasted here. The barbecue sauce covered up most of its fine flavor. It's all the fat with none of the enjoyable. Well, at least it was crispy.

Overall, Wendy's BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad was a miss for me. It felt mostly like overly-sweet barbecue sauce, chicken, and iceberg lettuce and had me wishing for a BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad from CPK. If might work if they add more corn, cheese, and tomatoes, plus maybe some black beans. For the price, I'd rather go to a fast-casual like Corner Bakery. The new Asian Cashew Chicken Salad is definitely my preference of the two.

Nutritional Info - Wendy's BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad
Calories - 580 (from Fat - 260)
Fat - 29g (Saturated Fat - 9g)
Sodium - 1460mg
Carbs - 43g (Sugar - 25g)
Protein - 41g