Time flies fast and we are, at the end of 2022, more than three years into the chicken sandwich wars. Throughout that time, everyone from obvious competitors like Chick-fil-A and Kentucky Fried Chicken to the more distant Starbucks (SBUX) and Taco Bell has tried launching some version of chicken on bread all to recreate the viral 2019 success of Popeyes' fried chicken sandwich.
Within a year of launching, Popeyes sold 2.1 billion chicken sandwiches across its restaurants.
Industry analysts often talk about market oversaturation (how many fried chicken sandwiches can you reasonably eat before you start craving something else?) but new takes have not stopped rolling in -- particularly ones promising a more unusual and feisty take on the classic.
Over the weekend, fans of the Restaurant Brands International (QSR)-owned Burger King leaked that the chain is preparing to launch a new version of its Original Chicken Sandwich. The latter has been around since the 1970s as a piece of breaded chicken with mayonnaise and lettuce atop a sesame bun.
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A New Take On A Very Old Sandwich
As Fast Food Post first confirmed, the Mexican Original Chicken Sandwich has the same components as the original along with ghost pepper cheese and crispy jalapeños. The toppings are similar to the ones atop the Ghost Pepper Whopper that Burger King put on its menus for Halloween this year but comes without the queso cheese, bacon and orange bun.
The new menu offering is slated to launch at the start of January 2023. Early photos also suggest that it is an LTO meant to test interest rather than a permanent menu item although Burger King has yet to release official details.
"I reached out to my local Burger King, and although they couldn't give me an exact date, they did confirm that the sandwich is, indeed, in the works and that it will be priced somewhere around the $5.99 mark," wrote G. Ramsay of Fast Food Post.
Jalapenos And The Industry's Take On Mexican Food
While the sandwich is yet to launch, it is already causing quite the stir online -- some are excited to see components of the Ghost Whopper return after the latter was pulled while others are criticizing it as an overly loose interpretation of "Mexican food."
"Doesn't really sound very 'Mexican,' unless you think Taco Bell is Mexican," wrote Reddit user BlankVerse of the Mexican Original Chicken Sandwich.
As with "Italian food" coming to mean the marinara and mozzarella, the presence of jalapeños is often all it takes for a fast-food company to call any dish "Mexican" -- even though, in recent years, the food industry has been more careful to differentiate between Tex-Mex and authentic regional cuisine from Mexico.
In November, Burger King also launched the the Italian BK Royal Crispy Chicken Sandwich -- a piece of chicken breast meat with marinara sauce and two slices of mozzarella cheese on a potato bun that received similarly mixed reviews and discussions of what a fast-food sandwich can or can't do.
The most recent Tex-Mex take on a chicken sandwich came last February when Yum! Brands (YUM)' Taco Bell launched the Cantina Crispy Chicken. While positioned as a fried chicken sandwich in a taco, the dish did not take off and eventually left the menu.
