8 Chain Restaurant Mozzarella Sticks, Ranked

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Alongside staples like Buffalo wings and chips with salsa, mozzarella sticks are among the most classic of American restaurant appetizers. As a tried-and-true favorite, most restaurants make mozzarella sticks essentially the same way: Thick mozzarella is coated in seasoned breading, deep fried, and served with marinara sauce for dipping. What makes one restaurant's mozzarella sticks different from another's is typically minute. The addition of a particular spice to a marinara sauce, for example, can make or break a given restaurant's mozzarella stick recipe.

I visited eight chain restaurants in one day and ordered mozzarella sticks from each. After tasting them all in a relatively short period of time, I ranked them from worst to best. Since the base mozzarella sticks at most of those chains were pretty similar, the deciding factor for a chain's position on this list was often a quality like the flavor of the dipping sauce, or even something as simple as the size of the sticks. So, based on my thoughts after trying them, ahead is my ranking of eight chain restaurant mozzarella sticks.

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I picked up my eight orders of mozzarella sticks in two different legs, within hours of one another. First, I mapped out a route that allowed me to visit the five fast food chains included on this list in quick succession, all near my home in the suburbs of Las Vegas. Thanks to each order including at least a few mozzarella sticks, I was able to try one from each chain fresh in my car, before trying them all again at home and noting down my thoughts. Then, I placed online orders for the three sit-down chains and was able to pick them up within minutes of one another in a second trip. I tried those at home shortly afterward.

To determine my rankings, I took into account virtually every aspect of the mozzarella stick experience: the flavor of the breading, the firmness of the cheese, the viscosity of the sauce, and even the quantity of dipping sauce I received in a standard order. One factor that did not affect my rankings was cheese pull, simply because, by the time I brought my mozzarella sticks home and could have tried some cheese pulls, the mozzarella was no longer gooey enough to do so. With that one minor caveat, I wanted my analyses to be as comprehensive as possible, in order to emphasize the qualitative differences between mozzarella sticks that were often more similar than not.

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Burger King makes pretty solid mozzarella sticks. In other words, even though the Burger King Mozzarella Fries landed in the bottom spot, this list's floor is still pretty high. The fact that Burger King calls its proprietary mozzarella sticks "fries" is pertinent — they're thinner in size than the mozzarella sticks I received from any other restaurant. That thinness is paired with an industry-leading price point, with a small order totaling basically half of what I paid for the smallest order of mozzarella sticks anywhere else.

One notable quality that held my Burger King Mozzarella Fries back a bit was a pervasive limpness, due to a cheese that was softer than usual and a lack of crunch in the breading. Particularly flawed was the accompanying marinara sauce, defined first and foremost by a vinegary tang. The prominent flavor underscoring the sweetened tomato landed the sauce in an uncanny valley between marinara and ketchup, when committing to one side or the other would have been preferable. 

There are a few reasons Burger King is so cheap, and the Mozzarella Fries benefit from those cost-saving strategies, boasting the best price of all the options I tried. That said, even if Burger King's version was perfectly fine and lacking any truly objectionable qualities, the pricier options I tried were all a little better.

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Over the course of its decades-long history, the Checkers and Rally's chain has pulled itself out of restaurant ruin on multiple occasions, changing ownership in 2023, for example, to avoid filing for bankruptcy. The creativity that keeps the Checkers and Rally's chain afloat extends to its proprietary mozzarella sticks — they're "Fry-Seasoned" as their name indicates. I found they were indeed distinct from the same flavor that defined the majority of chain restaurant mozzarella sticks on this list.

Somehow, I legitimately tasted potato in my Rally's Fry-Seasoned Mozzarella Stix. It's possible the chain uses potato flour in its breading, but it's also possible I was predisposed to make the comparison. Actual potato or not, they delivered on their name. Adding to their uniqueness was a tempura-esque batter that created a shell loosely surrounding the mozzarella, rather than adhering directly to it. 

While I liked both of those qualities, Rally's marinara sauce was straight-up bad. For what it's worth, this was not a Rally's-branded sauce but marinara produced by the Red Gold brand. It tasted faintly like tomato and not much else. Paired with a different sauce, it's entirely possible the Rally's Fry-Seasoned Mozzarella Stix would be pretty solid. However, assessing my order as I received it, the Red Gold marinara sauce brought down some otherwise solid mozzarella sticks.

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One of my favorite things about the White Castle Mozzarella Cheese Sticks was that they came in the same cardboard sleeve used to serve the chain's signature sliders. White Castle's famously delicious sliders are such an iconic fast food item, and I enjoyed that their bespoke packaging was repurposed for a side dish. It's a small thing but it brought me joy, and that's not negligible.

Beyond that fun factor, the White Castle Mozzarella Cheese Sticks' biggest strength was their size — they were the third-thickest of the bunch. The breading, meanwhile, was crispier than average, while noticeably light on seasonings other than salt. That latter quality wasn't really a bad thing, because it just made the natural flavor of the mozzarella more prominent. 

The accompanying Monarch-brand marinara sauce, however, wasn't to my liking. Its flavor was vinegary more than anything else, which buried the tomato component all while lacking noticeable sugar that might make it more ketchup-esque. Absolute vinegar fiends may find this an ideal dipping sauce, but for everyone else, White Castle's pretty hefty and solidly tasty mozzarella sticks are done a disservice by a strange marinara.

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The Bloomin' Onion at Outback Steakhouse is a must-try appetizer. It's hardly surprising then, that Outback would evoke that signature item in the name of its Fried Mozzarella Bloomerangs. Just what makes them "Bloomin'," however, was unclear to me at first. The reason, it turns out, is that they're seasoned with the same spices as the Bloomin' Onion, but that's not apparent by taste alone. Whereas Bloomin' Onion pieces are crispy, the breading on the Bloomerangs is seriously soft, making it hard to understand the comparison intuitively.

I was a little confused but didn't find the lack of similarity to the Bloomin' Onion a bad thing. My Bloomerangs' boomerang shape was undeniably fun, and their flavor was rich in umami, underscored by cumin or some similar spice. The cheese within was so soft I found it closer to a cream cheese than mozzarella. That quality was a net neutral, contributing to their uniqueness more than anything else. 

Where the Bloomerangs straight-up failed was their sauce. Visually, it was chunky like a pico de gallo. Simultaneously, it was noticeably oily, making it hard to use as a proper dip. It pretty much tasted like nothing, but its strange consistency was off-putting. The Bloomerangs themselves were good, if not great, but due to the aversion I felt to the chunky marinara, the Bloomerangs ended up on the lower half of this list.

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Out of 16 items, Mozzarella Sticks landed fifth on the Mashed list of popular Arby's menu items ranked worst to best. Not only are they one of the better items at Arby's, but I found them to be among the better mozzarella sticks I tried — not quite at the top of the list, but solid enough to warrant a recommendation all the same.

The mozzarella sticks combined a low-crunch breading with firm mozzarella, a little squeaky but not so thick that it became excessively chewy. What stood out most about Arby's Mozzarella Sticks was their significant thickness, beating out every other chain I visited but one. I found that to be their biggest strength, because there's something uniquely satisfying about biting into a substantial piece of fried cheese. 

The marinara sauce was perfectly fine, neither adding to nor detracting from the experience. Its flavor was more in the realm of pizza sauce than a marinara pasta sauce, high in oregano and spiced tomato. It's worth noting the sauce's texture was a little thin. For such large mozzarella sticks, a sauce that was bigger in flavor would have been preferable. Nevertheless, Arby's makes a perfectly good mozzarella stick, ideal for those in search of the heftiest option from a fast food restaurant.

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To set the stage a bit, the previous time I ate at Buffalo Wild Wings, my food was disappointing. Then, picking up my mozzarella sticks, I waited for what I felt was an unnecessarily long time to speak to an employee. I mention these experiences because I was predisposed to have a negative opinion of my Buffalo Wild Wings Mozzarella Sticks. As it turned out, they were good enough to redeem the chain's recent shortcomings.

First of all, the base mozzarella sticks couldn't have been more normal. Their size was average, their breading was somewhat crispy, and the cheese was of a standard firmness. Buffalo Wild Wings shined, however, because of its marinara sauce — it was heated up, thick in consistency, and well-spiced. The pizza sauce-reminiscent seasoning underscored a prominent, umami-rich tomato base. 

The fact the mozzarella sticks themselves were average ended up becoming a strength, because their lack of pizazz served as a somewhat blank canvas for an excellent marinara. Wings may be in Buffalo Wild Wings' name, but it turns out the mozzarella sticks are formidable, beating out the competition at a fair number of chains.

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Chili's is practically synonymous with its mozzarella sticks. One important chapter in the story of Chili's major resurgence was their virality on TikTok, thanks largely to their pronounced cheese pull. Perhaps because Chili's is one of the few chains associated with the appetizer, it offers different flavor options. As a connoisseur of spice, I ordered the Nashville Hot Mozzarella.

First and foremost, Chili's Fried Mozzarella Sticks are nice and fat, making for the single-largest chain restaurant option. One particularly unique quality is a layer of air between the breading and cheese, giving an extra bit of crunch to each bite that feels pretty satisfying. Unfortunately, I found the Nashville Hot flavor disappointing — it was smoky and oily more than anything else, lacking spice aside from a mildly fiery aftertaste that manifested only after I was done eating. 

In the presentation department, however, they hit a home run. Not only were the sticks drenched in Nashville Hot sauce, but I was given an unreasonably large container of ranch for dipping. The pure indulgence of dunking huge pieces of fried mozzarella into a swimming pool of ranch straight-up ruled. Even though the Nashville Hot flavor was a let-down, the fun I had eating my Nashville Hot Mozzarella more than made up for that disappointment, earning Chili's this list's number-two spot.

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In my experience, Sonic is one of the most hit-or-miss chains in fast food. The customizable drinks menu, for example, is among the best in its category, while the chicken tenders fall well short of the quality found at many other fast food restaurants. As it turns out, mozzarella sticks are one of the things Sonic doesn't merely do well, but does better than virtually all of its competitors.

What makes the Sonic Mozzarella Sticks so great is their dipping sauce. The sticks themselves are medium crispy and of a medium thickness. The spices in the breading are adequate, not necessarily strong but contributing a generally salty, savory character. 

The Sonic marinara, however, was as bold as could be — it was zesty first and foremost, adding a big dose of tomato-y tang without the excessive vinegar flavor that plagued some of the lesser sauces on this list. Simply put, that sauce was such a satisfying flavor bomb, if I could only order mozzarella sticks from one of the eight chains on this list, I'd pick Sonic every time. Even if they're not flashy, Sonic's proprietary marinara sauce single-handedly earns its mozzarella sticks the distinction of the very best from any restaurant chain.