Hungry Jack's Grilled Chicken

The Grilled Chicken burger is $9.45 and 1,465 kJ, which makes it one of the lightest proper burgers on the Hungry Jack's menu at about 17% of an adult daily intake. A flame grilled Australian chicken breast fillet with fresh salad and creamy Ranch dressing on a toasted sesame seed bun.

Flame grilling chicken is a different proposition from flame grilling beef. Beef has enough fat to survive an open flame and pick up smoke from its own drippings. A breast fillet has almost none, so the grill has to work fast and hot to mark the outside before the inside dries. What you get is a burger that tastes of char rather than of frying, and that is the whole difference between this and everything else on the chicken board.

Ranch is the right dressing for it. A grilled fillet is lean and can read as dry, and Ranch brings buttermilk fat and herbs without the weight of mayonnaise. Against fresh salad it keeps the burger tasting light rather than plain, which is the trap most grilled chicken burgers fall into.

The numbers are the argument. At 17g fat and 661mg sodium it is under half the fat of a fried chicken burger and roughly half the sodium. Protein is 22.4g, so it still does the job of a meal. At 1,465 kJ it sits below a Cheeseburger plus chips.

Who it suits: anyone looking for the lightest satisfying thing on the menu, and anyone who wants chicken without the crumb. It is the burger to order on a day when the rest of the eating has already been heavy. Grilled Chicken calories are among the lowest of any full size burger here.

Pair it with Small Thick Cut Chips at $2.00, or add bacon and cheese with the loaded version at $10.91.