Back in the day, Sonic Drive-Ins were few and far between in the St. Louis area. My father would take me there sometimes though and highlight the tater-tots (definitely also less common than they are now) as a menu item worth going out of the way for.
I think that’s true, but I’ve never really found much else food-wise to enjoy at Sonic. The drink options are good though the selection can be paralyzing. I’ve had the chili dogs, the burgers, the popcorn chicken… it’s all good enough. But not of it is worth getting excited about.
Recently they’ve been pushing their boneless chicken wings pretty hard though and I thought it was time for me to get out there and see what it was all about. They currently have 6 flavors on their website and I’ve taken up the mantel of trying them all, and ranking ‘em.
Are these any good? Are any of them worth eating?
This was a 2 day process that I undertook in one week, ordering three different sauces each day. Order 1 had Parmesan Garlic, Sweet Asian Chili & Hot Honey. Order 2 had Honey BBQ, Buffalo and Pineapple Habanero.
Overall, the wings exceeded expectations. I’ve had a previous iteration of Sonic’s buffalo chicken products before and generally found them soggy and kind of gross. Things have improved! These chicken pieces were crispy and tasted good, and that was after 10+ minutes in the car. This is a pretty good product for a chain, on-par with Buffalo Wild Wings’ boneless wings. Let’s dive in to see how the flavors stack up:
1. Pineapple Habanero
Sonic Description: “Pineapple Habanero Boneless Wings bring the heat with the sear of Habanero balanced with the sweet of pineapple.”
These are listed as the spiciest option of the 6 and by that regard, the Pineapple Habanero sauce is pretty disappointing. This sauce maxes out a little bit below BWW’s medium sauce. There is no amount of it that I could eat that would make my face numb.
BUT there is a good amount of flavor here, though honestly the Habanero doesn’t come through that strongly as a distinguishable flavor. It’s just a good mix of heat and flavor. Some Pineapple Habanero wings that I’ve had elsewhere has had too extremes of a flavor juxtipositoin but this is a good balance. If you can handle a bit of heat and are looking for something different, get these.
2. Parmesan Garlic
Sonic Description: “Garlic Parmesan boneless wings tossed in a buttery garlic parmesan sauce and you’ll never want to stop eating them.”
Parmesan Garlic is a sauce for cheaters. It’s incredibly fatty and therefore incredibly tasty. This is very similar to Buffalo Wild Wings version. Really nothing remarkable.
The sauce is pretty thick and for that reason I thought it might make the wings soggy but for whatever reason, that wasn’t the case. The wings were still crispy and delicious. This is the mildest flavor on the list and it is not spicy at all.
3. Hot Honey
Sonic Description: “ Hot Honey Boneless Wings for the perfect balance of sweet and spicy.”
I don’t understand what this sauce is, but it’s pretty good. Like the Pineapple Habanero, this is more of a glaze and the wings stay crispy. It’s like a buffalo sauce with more sugar, probably.
This, I think, was the 3rd hottest item on the menu and it was not noticeably spicy in any interesting way.
4. Honey BBQ
Sonic Description: “Sweet brown sugar with a touch of honey and chipotle pepper make this wing sauce our most popular seller!”
I expected this to be my least favorite sauce, because Honey BBQ is a stupid flavor. But congrats to this one for beating my expectations and being pretty good.
Ever had Honey BBQ before? This tastes like a pretty good version of that. The wings stayed crispy under the glaze-like-sauce and otherwise these were good. Probably better than BWW’s Honey BBQ
5. Buffalo
Sonic Description: “A classic favorite with the perfect balance cayenne pepper and the light buttery flavor you crave.”
I was hopeful that this would be my 2nd favorite option, but it wasn’t. The sauce flavor was fine, but whatever the sauce was made out of made the wings soggy. This was the only flavor of the 6 that came with soggy wings.
This is probably similar in heat to BWW’s mild wings, but perhaps with even less flavor. I don’t think these are the right color either. Mainly these are knocked points for their sogginess.
6. Sweet Asian Chili
Sonic Description: “A sweet & spicy sauce for the flavor adventurer, it combines savory soy sauce, garlic, ginger and red chili pepper.”
These were gross. They smelled gross and they didn’t taste good either. I had the word “tangy” in my tasting notes but later switched that word to sour. These are NOT like BWW’s Asian Zing, which is a generally good flavor. These are funky in a way that I am not interested in from a fast food restaurant.
Part of the problem could have been that I ate them right after the Parmesan Garlic and the flavors do not go well together. However, these are the only flavor of the 6 that I wouldn’t recommend getting.
Conclusion
Overall, these are better than I expected. They are crispy, and while none of the flavors are exceptional, all but 1 is acceptable. They do not push any boundaries for spiciness or flavor, but they are good.
They are priced reasonably. I tried all 6 of these at 6 a piece (36 wings) for $30. From 5pm – close, they are buy one get one free, so you could conduct this whole experiment yourself for $15. At that price, these are an excellent deal. I found that I could eat 10-12 of them before feeling uncomfortably full.
Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear any feedback or contradictions below.