For a limited time, McDonald’s is offering a fresh take on its beloved French Fries in the form of thick-cut sweet potato wedges. So how do these eccentric chippies taste? They say if it ain’t broke…
For most hot chip lovers, it’s pretty hard to beat a fresh serve of McDonald’s french fries. They’re crunchy, oily and despicably salty — the perfect compliment to any burger. With the exception of the occasional “shaker bag” and potato wedge offering, the company has stuck to the same chip for the better part of eighty years. Clearly, people seem to love ’em.
McDonald’s Sweet Potato Wedges are a rare attempt by the company to offer something new in the fries department. For the slightly steep asking price of $3.95, you get a single serve in a miniature cardboard box with a dipping tub of garlic aioli. Like most of McDonald’s limited-edition menu items, the fancy packaging is arguably more impressive than what’s inside.
Sweet potato fries have an undeserved reputation for being healthier than regular hot chips. In reality, anything deep fried is going to be pretty bad for you. According to McDonald’s nutritional information, a single serve of Sweet Potato Wedges contains 2580kJ. That’s more than double the kilojuele count of a small McDonald’s fries. A medium fries, meanwhile, contains 1540kJ and a large fries contains 1900kJ. So don’t get these if you’re specifically looking for a lighter option.
Sweet potato fries tend to divide people and the McDonald’s version were no exception. I’m fairly partial to them myself, but only on the odd occasion. When given a choice, I’ll usually plump for a traditional hot chip. (So take that for what it’s worth.)
As the above photo illustrates, the chips don’t look particularly appetising. They somehow manage to look both too soggy and too dry. I also found the various shapes and sizes a bit off-putting. Presumably this was an attempt by McDonald’s to make them look “rustic” but to me they just looked like mutants. With that said, most fast food looks rubbish: What really matters is the taste.
Unfortunately, the McDonald’s Sweet Potato Wedges failed to wow my taste buds. The texture was unpleasantly lumpy and the aioli was a little on the bland side. Plus, I’m not convinced that the sweeter flavouring of these wedges is a good mix for McDonald’s burgers — most of which already come with sugary sauces and buns.
All in all, I would’n’t call the Sweet Potato Wedges awful. At the same time, there’s little to no reason for them to exist on McDonald’s menu. Best avoided.
Comments
13 responses to “Taste Test: McDonald’s Sweet Potato Wedges”
I had them last time I was on the highway, they tasted okay but they were limp and unappetising. I wonder how they’d taste fried up like regular fries.
Sweet potato is a hard potato to deep fry, at the restaurant i work at we do a sweet potato peel garnish, and with that timing is everything, too long it goes black, not enough its soggy
I just had these for lunch. They were ok but not very hot. And the aioli was pretty bland, that was very disappointing.
Yuck.
Are these available in SA? I love sweet potato so I’d like to try them. They’ll either be quite nice or awful and I can bitch about them. Either way it’s a win for me! 😉
Yes!
…
Have you ever actually had some good chips? Personally a nice thick cut beer battered chip is pretty much unbeatable, though I’ve known a few places that do absolutely amazing to die for french fries.
There’s nothing really wrong with the chips from takeaway joints, they’re generally fine. And very cheap.
But they just don’t compare to anywhere that actually does good chips, so this statement confuses me.
I generally class my eating out in two categories “normal food” and “fast food”…. When I use the words ‘good’ and ‘tasty’ in regard to “fast food”, it is by no means anywhere comparable to “normal food”
Haha. Though I enjoy MacDonalds fries on occasion, they are ‘tasty’ though I would never compare them to well made beer battered chips from a restaurant.
I’m not actually trying to knock them, I’m quite the same as you and do enjoy fast food as something different.
I just can’t get over the assertion that Maccas chips are some high bar of quality that is almost impossible to match…
I’ve found them to be very disappointing. With a hold time of 20 mins they do go soggy, best to order them fresh and wait the extra 4 minutes.
While I’ve been inside a Macca’s twice (the second time I was, quite literally, carried kicking and screaming, I was 19!), I do approve of sweet potato chips.
They’re much lower GI than standard potato, making them a slightly less guilty pleasure for diabetics and anyone else on a low-carb diet.
“Best avoided” and it gets a 6/10?
I’d hate to see what kind of abominations get a lower score! 😉
I think that the sauce did not go at all with the chips, it was just a weird combination.
I also found they were a bit soggy and kind of tasteless. They just didn’t get it right.