8 Applebee's Entrees, Ranked Worst To Best

Applebee's is what one might call a casual restaurant behemoth. Despite some store closures in early 2026 as a result of store underperformance and the ever increasing costs associated with the restaurant industry, there are still approximately 1,600 Applebee's locations worldwide, across 17 countries and territories, making it one of the industry leaders. The chain is known for its extensive menu, frequent promotions, and comfort food, so chances are you've eaten at an Applebee's at least once in your life. Despite its success, the chain gets a lot of hate online and isn't often the first choice for dining out. But is its lukewarm reputation really warranted?

Although inattentive servers and low food quality are frequent customer complaints at Applebee's, I recently visited my local Hendersonville, North Carolina location where my server was amazing and the food was overall really good. I tasted and ranked Applebee's entrées during my visit, and while some of the dishes completely missed the mark, there are also several that I liked so much I would make a special trip to order them again.

I love a good entrée salad. Unfortunately, neither of the two I ordered at Applebee's were very good. The California grilled chicken salad was the least appetizing of the two, which was surprising because California chicken salads are a common go-to for me.

I typically expect a California salad to have sliced avocado, but this one has an avocado cucumber salsa, instead. To be honest, I couldn't taste avocado at all. The flavor of the "salsa" was good, but that's because I'm a cucumber lover and it tasted like a diced cucumber dressing. Salsa is a stretch. It also isn't what I would equate with a California salad.

The shaved parmesan cheese was also an odd choice, offering none of the creaminess that I would have gotten from a more typical goat or blue cheese, and which was sorely missing without whole avocado. The menu description says this salad is made with mixed greens, which I would have really appreciated, but I didn't see or taste anything other than green leaf lettuce. The tomato slices felt like an afterthought and were pretty flavorless. Overall, the salad was bland and disconnected. I wouldn't order it again unless the ingredients are heavily overhauled.

The other entrée salad I tried at Applebee's was the strawberry balsamic chicken salad. It was a little better than the California salad, but just barely. There were some ingredients I expected and appreciated, like the sliced strawberries and balsamic glaze (though there wasn't nearly enough of the latter). I didn't expect the red onion but liked the way its pungent flavor played off of the sweet strawberries.

What left me baffled was the inclusion of diced tomatoes. The small chunks were bland filler. I was also disappointed that the chicken itself had no discernible balsamic flavor. Having it marinated in balsamic prior to grilling would have amped up the flavor in a really pleasant way. Instead, the chicken felt disconnected from the rest of the salad.

Once again, the salad was entirely missing a creamy element. I don't know that I've ever had a balsamic strawberry salad without goat cheese (even this strawberry balsamic frosting uses goat cheese!), so it was a strange omission. The almonds offered a nice crunch, but walnuts would have given the salad better flavor and a good source of fat. The greens (just green leaf lettuce) were bland and not worth the effort of chewing. Overall, the salad would have greatly benefited from forgoing the Lite Italian dressing it was tossed in and instead been served with a hearty balsamic dressing on the side, rather than just relying on a balsamic drizzle to bring the flavor.

As I began tasting the Southwest chicken bowl, I found myself looking back and forth between it and the Tex-Mex shrimp bowl. It didn't take me long to realize that, despite having different names that suggest a difference in ingredients, the only difference between the two is the protein, and (spoiler!) the shrimp bowl does it better.

The Southwest chicken bowl does have many of the elements of Southwestern food that I would expect, like the chipotle lime spice on the chicken, fresh pico de gallo, and the black bean and corn salsa (though I had to dig to find the black beans). In fact, it features many of the same ingredients as our Southwestern pasta salad recipe. It was a dish that I would be overall happy to receive and I would order it again, but it could use some tweaks.

I don't know where the chimichurri is meant to fit in with this bowl, since it is not historically a Southwestern ingredient (it originated in South America and is used widely in other parts of Latin America). It was really delicious on its own, but the flavors didn't complement the chicken the way I would have hoped. Similarly, the cilantro lime rice was tasty, but the rice Applebee's bills as Spanish rice (which is served with the fiesta lime chicken) would have fit the flavor profile a bit better and would help further differentiate this dish from the Tex-Mex shrimp bowl.

The fiesta lime chicken at Applebee's is really delicious but also very heavy. The grilled chicken is covered in both a sauce and a lot of melted cheese. I was impressed with how juicy and tender the chicken was, but it was hard to appreciate it while smothered in sauce and cheese. Thankfully, the lime glaze on the chicken and the fresh lime wedge it's served with help cut through some of the richness. The dish also comes with a side dish of pico de gallo, which adds to the freshness, but it wasn't clear if I was meant to eat it on its own as a palate cleanser between rich bites, or if it was meant to be eaten right alongside the chicken.

The rice served with this dish is listed on the menu as Spanish rice, but looks and tastes much more like Mexican rice. Typically, Spanish rice is yellow from saffron, while Mexican rice is a reddish orange from tomatoes. Because the dish was already rich and heavy, the spice-forward rice made the dish almost too salty. I wish it had been served with the cilantro lime rice from the two bowls I tried. In fact, I tried a bite of that rice with the dish and much preferred it. The tortilla strips served on the plate would've offered a nice crunchy element, except that most of them were under the sauce and cheese, which made them soggy, unappetizing, and hard to find.

The first thing I tasted on the Tex-Mex shrimp bowl was the green chimichurri sauce, and it was delicious! It was a fantastic combination of tangy, spicy, garlicky flavors that paired phenomenally with the slightly spicy chipotle lime shrimp, which was perfectly cooked (I feared it would be overcooked and rubbery).

The charred corn and peppers had a great smokiness and really complemented the dish. The corn was apparently meant to be part of a black bean and corn salsa like in the Southwest chicken bowl, but the black beans were virtually non-existent in the dish. That said, I didn't miss them and only realized they were supposed to be there after going back and re-reading the description. The cilantro lime rice felt appropriate with this dish, as the lime flavor really complemented the shrimp (along with a squeeze of fresh lime juice).

Unfortunately, the guacamole was the only creamy element in the Tex-Mex shrimp bowl and it missed the mark. It was very thin, watery, and bland (clearly a packaged guacamole rather than house-made). The house made pico de gallo was really flavorful, so I wish the guacamole had gotten the same care. Even if the guacamole had been better, though, a creamy, cooling element like sour cream or cheese would have been nice to counter the chipotle in the shrimp seasoning, especially since both are elements that define Tex-Mex food. The lettuce was unnecessary and could be nixed entirely.

Applebee's Bourbon Street chicken and shrimp dish is made with Cajun-spiced chicken and blackened shrimp with a butter and parsley sauce and sautéed onions and mushrooms. For the uninitiated, blackened food has a crust of blackening seasonings, it's not the same thing as charred. The Applebee's blackened seasoning gave the perfectly cooked shrimp a really great flavor and the tiniest bit of heat. The chicken, on the other hand, wasn't as distinctly flavorful as I would have hoped from something described as Cajun-spiced.

The dish comes out sizzling and smoky. While this is almost certainly for effect, the sautéed mushrooms and onions were flavorful. The mushrooms were perfectly overcooked and had a great earthy taste. Some of the onions were really beautifully caramelized, while others hadn't been cooked as long and were closer to the soft and translucent stage. Paired with the sauce, the onions and mushrooms almost stole the spotlight from the chicken and shrimp.

The dish came with the garlic mashed potatoes by default, but I wish I'd requested a change. The garlic mashed potatoes were delicious but didn't feel like the best companion. The buttery flavor of the sauce on the chicken and shrimp was already pretty rich, and the additional butteriness from the potatoes made it a bit too heavy. In the future, a fresh, crunchy coleslaw might be just the thing to cut through the richness.

The 6 ounce sirloin at Applebee's is lightly seasoned and grilled to the customer's preferred temperature. I prefer my steaks medium rare, so that's how I ordered it. There is an option to add toppers to the steak, like grilled onions, crispy onions, sautéed garlic and mushrooms, or the restaurant's shrimp 'n parmesan topper, but I opted to have the steak as-is.

I was very pleased to see that the steak was cooked exactly as I'd asked. My server asked if I wanted any steak sauce, but it wasn't necessary. The steak was well-seasoned and had a really delicious char flavor that complemented the spices. The steak had just the right amount of chew and fat for the price point. I knew after the first bite that it was going to be a frontrunner among all the dishes.

While you can customize your sides at Applebee's, I got the 6 ounce sirloin with the suggested sides, garlic mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. Steak and potatoes are an obvious dynamic duo, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how well seasoned the broccoli was and the way it enhanced the dish overall.

Choosing the top dish was a bit tricky, but the blackened Cajun salmon is where the Applebee's blackened seasoning really shines, and it just edged out the 6 ounce sirloin. While conventional wisdom might suggest you should think twice before ordering seafood at a casual restaurant, the salmon at Applebee's was tender, juicy, and perfectly cooked. The blackened seasoning was seared on the fish, forming a crunchy crust that was the perfect textural addition to the flaky salmon. The seasoning had a good amount of salt but wasn't overly salty, and the flavor was both bold and smoky. It was admittedly a little lacking in heat that I typically expect from a blackened seasoning, but despite that I kept wanting to go back for more bites — the true measure of a good dish, in my experience.

Because I already had the steamed broccoli with the steak, I opted for green beans with the salmon. They had a nice flavor and were well-cooked, but I could have honestly had just about any side with the salmon and it would have been delicious. This is a dish that I would make a special trip to Applebee's specifically to order in the future, which is what lands it in the top spot.

To cover a wide range of entrées at Applebee's for this sampling, I selected dishes from several different menu sections, including steaks, chicken, seafood, bowls, and salads. I ordered all of the dishes at the same time at my local restaurant and took one to two bites of each in turn to gather initial impressions, as well as additional bites after all dishes had been tried to narrow down the order. I ranked the dishes based on overall taste, how well the ingredients worked together, and whether I would order them again.

I also intentionally chose dishes marked as gluten-sensitive using the brand's allergen and lifestyle filter to exclude gluten-containing ingredients (and therefore did not sample the burgers or pasta). While Applebee's cannot guarantee that dishes will not have cross-contact with gluten-containing items given the shared kitchen, I felt comfortable enough with the ingredients and preparation methods to consider the dishes gluten-free for my purposes. Customers with allergies or other dietary restrictions should do their own risk assessment and speak with a server or manager.