I love the idea that a fast food restaurant has a summer menu. It’s a very wholesome idea that Burger King has embraced with a lineup that debuted on Tuesday.
Led by the return of Crown Nuggets, the chain also rolled out a Loaded Jalapeño Whopper, Firecracker Cookie Pie and Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King.
“As the weather heats up, we know our guests are craving for fun flavors that they ... experience and share,” Joel Yashinsky, chief marketing officer at Burger King, said in the company’s announcement. “Whether they’re looking for a full meal or a sweet or savory snack, these new limited time menu items deliver the type of innovation guests have been asking for, and we’re continuing to listen and give them what they want.”
Crown Nuggets have been missing from Burger King’s menu since 2011 — a disappearance that fans of the royal-shaped chicken haven’t let the restaurant forget.
“We’ve been committed to creating awesome experiences for the whole family and listening to our guests, and bringing back our Crown Nuggets allows us to do both of those things,” Yashinsky added.
I was on the road when Burger King’s summer menu went live on Tuesday, but when I spotted one as I was passing through central Pennsylvania, I decided to make a Snackology stop.
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What they cost
I paid $8.39 for a 10-piece Crown Nuggets meal that included a medium Coke Zero and onion rings, $2.99 for a Firecracker Cookie Pie and $2.49 for a small Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King.
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Normally with a menu rollout like this one, I’ll order everything. But since I wasn’t at home and didn’t feel like I should consume that much food in the middle of a long drive, I decided to skip the Loaded Jalapeño Whopper.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a Burger King chicken nugget. As a kid growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I definitely had my fair share of the long Burger King chicken tenders that felt distinctly different from a McNugget, but the chain seems to have done away with those at some point in the past. (I’ve definitely had Chicken Fries.)
While I enjoyed the flavor of Crown Nuggets, which are only back on the menu for a limited time, I found them to be lacking when it came to crispiness. They were missing the thick layer of breading on a Wendy’s nugget or the battered snap that you get when biting into a McNugget.
I remember drifting over to Burger King during many of our family dinners at the mall food court to purchase a Hershey’s Sundae Pie. It didn’t even matter if we had gotten our actual dinners from Burger King.
Peeling the sides of the box for the Firecracker Cookie Pie unlocked a touch of nostalgia for me. I love that Burger King landed on this design for a pie slice and stuck with it for decades. (Unlike how the chain wisely scuttled the Burger King Kids Club characters. They named the kid in a wheelchair “Wheels”!)
The Firecracker Cookie Pie is Burger King’s ode to America’s 250th birthday. In addition to a “crisp sugar cookie crust,” this frozen pie is topped off with star-spangled patriotic sprinkles.
Snackology readers know that I love it when a fast food chain throws a little treat into a new menu. Burger King has really excelled at this lately. Grogu’s Blue Cookie Shake was easily my favorite part of the Bounty Bundle, and the Firecracker Cookie Pie ran away with that honor when it comes to Burger King’s summer menu.
Wow, I did not know what I was getting when I went to take a sip of my Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King. I was expecting a beverage similar to the Orange Dream that McDonald’s rolled out as part of its lineup of dirty sodas, but this fella is something completely different.
I guess the orange sprinkles on top should’ve been my clue.
I’m still trying to figure out what’s exactly happening with the Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King. Burger King’s announcement of the new menu item highlights its “classic ‘creamsicle’ profile, with a frozen orange base, topped with orange cream cold foam & sprinkles.” The website for the beverage calls it an “orange flavor frozen beverage topped with smooth orange cream flavored cold foam and orange cream flavored crunch crumble.”
Yeah, I don’t know how to fully reconcile those two descriptions either.
But the Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King is fun. It’s pretty much an orange slushee given a dirty twist — and then topped with crushed orange cookie bits. My only complaint is that the Burger King I stopped at in Pennsylvania gave me a paper straw to drink my Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King with, and those crumbles constantly clogged it.
The Omnicosm founder. Snackology, Popculturology and The Cold Open writer. A Rochester, N.Y., native now living in the Washington, D.C., area. Won’t pass up a Genny Cream Ale.
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