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I love fast food, but it’s getting expensive. I remember when Happy Meals used to be $1.99. Now they’re almost double that. So whenever I eat out, I always get food from the Dollar Menu. Every fast food restaurant has a variation of this where the items on the menu are $1 or less.

I really don’t care what I eat because all fast food will satisfy my belly equally; I just want to know what dollar menu burger gives the most bang for its buck. So…I decided to do research.

I went to three of the most common fast food burger restaurants. McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s. I bought every single burger they had on their dollar menus and took them home to compare.

The burgers I bought were:

McDonalds
Double Hamburger w/ Cheese
Hot n Spicy McChicken

Burger King
Whopper Jr.
Spicy Chick’n Crisp

Wendy’s
Double Stack
Jr. Cheeseburger
Jr. Cheeseburger
Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger
Crispy Chicken Sandwich

I weighed each burger on a small kitchen scale and noted the ounces. I also took pictures of what the burgers looked like inside and out.

NOTE: The nutrition facts were taken from the restaurants’ official websites. They may have been altered a bit to make the food seem healthier.

(Click on the pictures for a larger view)



McDonalds ($1 each)
Grew up on this stuff so it all tastes nostalgic to me. But there is this unique taste to McDonalds’ burgers. It must be something in that meat flavoring they use.


Double Hamburger w/ Cheese:


Comments: Does this sound weird? Shouldn’t it be the Double Cheeseburger? Nope. McDonalds decided to cut costs by taking away 1 slice of cheese from its Double Cheese Burger. They changed the name so people can’t complain and increased the price of the original Double Cheese Burger to $1.19.

Coming up with the nutrition facts for this one was tricky because McDonalds’ website didn’t have one up for the Double Hamburger w/ Cheese. It still had is old Double Cheese Burger. So what I did was take subtracted the nutrition of the Cheese Burger with the Hamburger. That gives me the nutrition of 1 slice of cheese. I then subtracted the results from the nutrition of the Double Cheese Burger, thus giving me a decent approximation of the nutrition of the Double Hamburger w/ Cheese.

After eating 2 of these you get a little sick of the overpowering cheesy taste. Not the best for eating competitions.


Hot n Spicy McChicken:


Comments: It was spicy enough to make my nose sweat. The shredded lettuce makes it appear like there’s more than there actually is. But I do like them shredded. There’s less of a chance of accidentally pulling out the whole lettuce leaf in one bite.



Burger King ($1 each)
Their meat is “flame-broiled” so it tastes more like a grilled burgers than the other restaurants.


Whopper Jr.:


Comments: Pretty tasty. The sesame seeds, crunchy pickles, and flame-broiled meat that makes it taste better than most fast food burgers. Though I did only get 1 small tomato when the picture clearly shows 2. Disappointed.


Spicy Chick’n Crisp:


Comments: Also spicy enough to make my nose sweat. But it’s pretty much the same as McDonalds’ chicken sandwich.



Wendy’s ($0.99 each)
Wendy’s burgers have a rectangular meat patty instead of the usual circle shape. They use mustard on their burgers.


Double Stack:


Comments: It’s alright. Similar to the McDonalds’ Double Hamburger w/ Cheese. But it doesn’t make you feel sick after eating.


Jr. Cheeseburger:


Comments: Just your average fast food cheese burger. But it does come with onions.


Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger:


Comments: I don’t know why anyone would buy the Jr. Cheeseburger when they can buy this for the same price. Nice large piece of lettuce and tomato. The bacon strips were wimpy but it’s still my favorite out of all the Wendy’s burgers.


Crispy Chicken Sandwich:


Comments: No change in the chicken sandwich formula when compared to the other two chicken sandwiches. Nice large piece of lettuce and mayonnaise. I do feel that this was the smallest and least satisfying of the chicken sandwiches.



Final Verdict:
So when it comes to chicken sandwiches, Burger King’s Spicy Chick’n Crisp wins for taste and weight. Though it does have the most fat.

Because Burger King didn’t post the amount of vitamins in their burgers, it’s hard for me to judge which burger is the healthiest. But from the information I do have, McDonald’s Double Hamburger w. Cheese is the “healthiest” of the group…surprisingly.

When it comes to taste, it’s Burger King’s Whopper Jr. for the win.


God this post took me forever to do.