KFC Beyond Fried Chicken Review

First, chain restaurants started carrying vegan hamburgers: Fridays, White Castle, even Burger King. Now KFC has stepped to the plate and somehow, this feels bigger. Kentucky Fried Chicken carrying plant based fried chicken seems like a moment. Like when GMC announced they’re going to stop making cars with combustion engines by 2040.

I mean LOOK AT THIS! They’ve even ditched the traditional red for a promotional green!

Ok, ok, this is starting to feel like I’m stalling. The question is, how do they taste?

They taste pretty damn good.

I can’t remember the last time I had KFC, so I’m not the right person to do a comparison, but this thing they have going with Beyond is working. It’s working really well! It’s not like any other plant based chicken I’ve had before. The breading is different, the chicken is different – it’s just different. I mean, everybody’s take on vegan chicken is a little different, but this feels like a step forward.

They’re dense in a way we found pleasing. A 12 piece and a large fry is definitely enough food for two adults. KFC seems to be coming up short in the vegan sauce department (it’s unclear to me if any of their sauces are vegan), but that’s hardly a deal breaker.

We also tried the Secret Ingredient Fries (I swear that’s what they’re called – apparently they discontinued the potato wedges) and they’re great french fries, no doubt. But I’ll level with you: after eating them and carefully studying them under the magnification available via my eyeglasses, I am now ready to reveal the secret ingredient:

Or at least I’ll say this: I’M PRETTY SURE IT’S SALT.

Now they’re not overly salted, they’re very tasty – I’m just saying I don’t know why they went with this name.

We used the official KFC website to get delivery and it was easy and timely. (If I remember correctly, they use Door Dash.) No complaints. However, I wanted to enter a custom tip, but it wouldn’t let me. I think it’s because I was using the DUCK DUCK GO browser (I’ve seen similar issues before) and not the KFC website. More on that after we try again.

I really enjoyed this combined effort of KFC & Beyond. Fast, easy, convenient, relatively affordable, delicious – it’s worth trying.