The Legendary KFC Sandwich Fans Called Peak Fast Food Chaos

When it comes to fried chicken sandwiches, KFC isn't usually on the cutting edge. They have them, of course, but they're not quite as famous as Chick-Fil-A's beloved offering (which you can get fresh every time with this ordering hack), or as buzzy as the Popeye's chicken sandwich that became a fast food phenomenon. But KFC does have one entrant in the Fast Food Sandwich Hall of Fame that's well-loved despite being truly, objectively bonkers. We are, of course, talking about the Double Down Sandwich, which still has people clamoring for its return.

What is the Double Down? Well, it's like if a chicken sandwich got caught in that messed-up transformation chamber from "The Fly." Instead of a chicken fillet being the filling between two slices of bread, the bread is replaced by two pieces of chicken, with cheese and bacon serving as the filling. (They wouldn't go so far as to have a third piece of chicken serve as the filling, of course. That would just be ridiculous.) If it sounds like a total monstrosity, well, we're not trying to tell you it isn't. But it's remembered quite fondly, with testimonials on Reddit attesting to its brilliance. "I got it the first time as a joke. Was shocked by how good it was," said one Redditor. "It was a glorious masterpiece," raved another. "I need it to come back."

The Double Down was first announced on April Fool's Day of 2010, which led some to believe that it was nothing more than a prank from KFC. (This was back in the halcyon days of the internet when April Fool's Day was still whimsical and fun rather than an exhausting obligation.) But much to the horror of dieticians everywhere, the Double Down was all too real, inviting plenty of gawkery from disbelieving commentators. A pre-"Late Show" Stephen Colbert tried it on "The Colbert Report," and said (via Eater), "It's like an edible Hieronymus Bosch painting wrapped in a paper straitjacket," while a writer for the humor website Cracked concluded a surreal, satirical article about the sandwich by declaring, " In the end, I found the KFC Double Down sandwich to be crisp, mildly tangy, a little messy and a harbinger of a blood-soaked world of unrelenting pain."

But although the Double Down was discontinued sometime in 2014, it's possible the sandwich was just ahead of its time. After all, our current zeitgeist is obsessed with protein and leery of carbohydrates; in a world with bunless burgers, using meat in place of buns isn't that much of a stretch. (In fact, the Double Down was also offered with grilled chicken instead of fried.) And while the sodium and cholesterol content of the Double Down precludes any sort of health benefits, it did contain fewer calories than a Whopper. Perhaps KFC is aware of this, too, as it brought back the Double Down for a limited time in 2023. Who's to say it can't come back again?