How To Order An Italian-Style Chicken Sandwich At Burger King

We love a good fast food hack — McDonald's Chicken McNuggets are an especially good candidate — and Burger King hacks are no exception. When it comes to clever swaps at the burger chain, we have you covered on the sweet front, but did you know you can also create an easily assembled makeshift Italian sub? Take the chain's Original Chicken Sandwich, with its slab of fried poultry, lettuce, and mayonnaise, and you'll feel like you're at a classic Italian sandwich shop with a few creative swaps.

The elongated bun of the Original Chicken Sandwich makes it the perfect blank canvas for turning it into your makeshift Italian sandwich. The main thing is getting rid of the mayo and lettuce by ordering it plain, and replacing them with Mozzarella Fries (breaded, deep-fried mozzarella sticks) and the complementary marinara dip.

Burger King's Mozzarella Fries work perfectly as the substitute for the melted cheese you get in a classic Italian sub. Put them on the patty, then spoon some of the marinara sauce inside before adding the top bun back. You have to be okay getting your hands a little dirty for this one. Since it isn't an official Burger King recipe, you can't order it directly.

Trying your hand at making an Italian-style sandwich at Burger King — better known for its signature classic beef burger, the Whopper — might seem strange, but it actually builds on a tried-and-tested formula that the chain used to sell. Indeed, Burger King's Original Chicken Sandwich, which dates back to 1979, came out with an Italian Chicken Sandwich in 1988 as part of various internationally themed variants of the recipe.

The construction of Burger King's discontinued Italian sandwich was simple: its distinctively long, breaded fried chicken patty was topped with marinara sauce and melted mozzarella between two sesame seed-lined buns. It reappeared various times throughout the years, garnering an almost cult-like status among chicken parm lovers and devotees of "faux-talian." In the winter and autumn of 2007, the chain advertised the sandwich with a commercial by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, leaning into Italian "tough guy" tropes. It was on menus again in 2014, in 2021 as part of a two for $6 collection, and made a return in 2023.

It's also not the only Italian-themed burger the chain has delivered. The Italian Royal Crispy Chicken Sandwich launched in 2023 for a short time as a deluxe upgrade, served on a potato bun, while back in 1992, the chain delivered a Parmigiana-style Italian sausage sandwich. The return of an Italian Chicken Sandwich is not entirely off Burger King's cards; as one Reddit user jokingly mentioned in a thread devoted to the topic, an Italian "comes and go[es] every year." For the time being, you have to use a little elbow grease to create your own makeshift version.