Hello, Her Campus Kenyon readers! We’re Maggie and Cassady, current friends and former roommates, and we are back to rate some more Mount Vernon cuisine. Our last article was all about pumpkin spice lattes, and after all those sugary drinks we were ready for some salty snacks! We decided to stick with the breakfast theme, and so we settled on hash browns.
Our ranking was out of 5 potatoes for 5 categories—salt level, crunchy golden brownness, greasiness, bang for your buck, and presentation. At the end, we’ll total our ratings and present our overall winner!
#1: The McMaster: McDonald’s ($1.00 per hash brown)
Maggie: Maybe I’ll get some flack for it, but what can I say, I love a McDonald’s hash brown. I think they’re delightfully crunchy and have just the right amount of salt. They’re not super greasy (which is surprising, I know), and they are delightful. I would happily spend my dollar on a McDonald’s hash brown any time of any day. The fact that these are available 24/7 also elevates my feelings on this matter. My score is a solid 4.5/5 potatoes.
Cassady: Let’s be real with ourselves, McDonald’s has a lot of haters. However, at the end of the day, they never let us down. When we pulled into the McDonald’s drive-through, I knew I was in for a pretty stellar hash brown, not gonna lie. I found the salt level to be pretty good, and the hash brown to be close to the perfect amount of grease to crunch. However, I would have loved it to be a bit crunchier and more golden brown; I found mine to be way crunchier on the outside edges than all around. The packaging for all the hash browns was pretty standard, but this struck me as particularly boring. However, for $1, I would definitely buy this one again. I rate it 4.5/5 potatoes.
#2: Live Más(hed): Taco Bell ($1.00 per hash brown)
Maggie: I wasn’t expecting greatness from Taco Bell. Potatoes have no place in a taco, and after tasting their hash brown, I can tell you they have no place in a Taco Bell either. This hash brown was very greasy and very crunchy. The inside tasted like store-bought mashed potatoes, yet strangely, the whole thing was completely lacking in saltiness. This hash brown made me a bit nauseous, to be honest. I rank this hash brown 2/5 potatoes.
Cassady: Listen, Taco Bell gets a lot of flack, but I’ve grown up eating it, and it will quite honestly always have a special place in my heart. However, when Mags and I decided on this article, and the places we would test out, I have to admit, I was very hesitant about the idea of a Taco Bell hash brown. It just doesn’t seem like it would be…okay. But alas, I do it for you all. I think I only got through maybe three bites of this hash brown before feeling genuinely sick. It had absolutely no salt and was insanely crunchy to the point of having almost no potato flavor. But, I think the worst part was the amount of grease in it. After tasting this hash brown, I genuinely didn’t know if I could eat another one for the review. I rate this 1.5/5 potatoes.
#3: Canadian Heavy Hitter: Tim Hortons ($0.50 per hash brown)
Maggie: This hash brown was pretty good! It wasn’t super crispy, and it could have been a little saltier. This hash brown certainly had the most authentic potato flavor, and it was probably the least greasy of them all. I will say that as an environmentally conscious person, I also appreciated how Tim Horton’s used less packaging than any of the other places. Also, wow, for what you get, this is an excellent price! I would rank this hash brown 4/5 potatoes because even though it’s not super crispy or salty, it is a great bargain.
Cassady: Okay listen, Maggie and I may or may not have decided to review hash browns after having one of these bad boys with our Tim Hortons PSL from our last review. So, I was eager to go back and see how this wallet-friendly potato cake stacked up to its competitors. Honestly, I wasn’t let down; it had a really good genuine potato flavor and super cute packaging. I will say though, it was a bit chewy from uneven cooking distribution, making it a bit less appealing. I still genuinely liked it though and would rate it a solid 4/5 potatoes.
#4: America Still Runs on It: Dunkin’ Donuts ($1.29 for 6 hash brown bites)
Maggie: These were kind of funky, but in a good way. I really liked that they were little bites, and I also enjoyed that they were seasoned inside with what tasted like chives or onion. Again, I could have used some more salt, but overall these were pretty tasty. They came out burning hot, and they were great for sharing. These hash browns were the most unique of all those we tried, but they were really lacking in crispiness. I rate them 4/5 potatoes.
Cassady: After eating so many hash browns, I genuinely didn’t know if I could fit another potato product in my mouth without feeling nauseous. However, upon purchasing these little hash brown bites, I was so intrigued and excited to try them! They were a perfect mix of seasoning, salt, and crunch—all in a tiny little potato bite. I think they were a really awesome take on the OG breakfast food, and I would definitely buy them again. They sit at a solid 4.3/5 potatoes for me!
(We wanted to note that while we did attempt to try Wendy’s breakfast hash brown, we found that the Wendy’s in Mt.Vernon does, in fact, not serve breakfast…so we couldn’t try those for you all.)
So it looks like our OG, McDonald’s is the winner of this hash brown throwdown at 4.5/5 potatoes! We hope this review proved helpful for you and that you find yourself snacking on some hash browns in the near future!
Image Credits: Authors