Joe Tamborello

joe.tamborello@indystar.com

Your choices used to be pretty slim for fast food restaurants offering breakfast. That has changed in recent years, with more and more burger and taco chains opening early. Now, we may live in the golden age of fast food breakfast.

With so many fast food breakfast choices out there, we thought we'd rank the best offerings. Some are new. Some are classics. Let us know in the comments if we missed a good one.

10. Hardee's Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit

Hardee's makes its biscuits fresh in each restaurant and that's what sets this sandwich apart from other biscuit-based offerings from competitors. Hardee's also offers other breakfast sandwiches on its biscuits. Sausage and ham can take the place of bacon. But the saltiness of the bacon combined with the buttery biscuit makes the Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit so good. Just don't test your blood pressure afterward.

9. Dunkin' Donuts Hash Browns

The seasoning of these little disks is so distinct. The size and shape offer more area for crispiness than a single hash brown. So good! These alone are worth the stop. The good coffee is just a side perk.

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8. White Castle's Waffle Slider

It's a sandwich... between two waffles.You can choose between sausage or bacon. Or opt for the southern option, the biscuits and gravy waffle slider, when it's available.

7. Chick-fil-a Chicken Biscuit

Here's one for the egg haters and anyone wanting a change from bacon and sausage. Chicken isn't just for lunch and dinner. And like Hardee's above, the biscuits are made fresh daily at each restaurant.

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6. Burger King Croissan'wich

"It's the taste of an unexpected day off," says IndyStar's Justin Mack. "It's that flakiness with the egg. No one else does anything like it. They're all stuck on biscuits and muffins." This is also the only item with an apostrophe officially in its name.

5. McDonald's Egg McMuffin

The McDonald's Egg McMuffin is the classic fast food breakfast sandwich. It's officially a Gen-Xer, having been introduced in 1972. Unlike Grimace and the Fry Guys, it has stood the test of time. It's a go-to when you want a good, fast breakfast, but don't want to think.

4. Chick-fil-a Egg White Grill / McDonald's Egg White Delight

There are ways to eat a healthier breakfast when swinging through a drive-thru. Chick-fil-a and McDonald's offer lower calorie options. Chick-fil-a's 300 calorie Egg White Grill features a grilled chicken breast, egg white, and cheese on an English Muffin. McDonald's Egg White Delight is similar to the Egg McMuffin above, but substitutes American cheese for a white cheddar and the whole egg for an egg white. It comes in at just 260 calories.

3. McDonald's Chicken McGriddle

It started off as a secret menu item. It was the closest proximation to chicken and waffles you could make by combining ingredients from McDonald's breakfast and lunch/dinner menus. Take the McChicken's patty and sandwich it between a McGriddle pancake and syrup bun. Brilliant and delicious. So smart, in fact, that McDonald's began offering it on their breakfast menus in select locations.

2. Taco Bell AM Crunchwrap

This is probably the easiest to eat while on the go. Everything is neatly packaged inside a convenient tortilla pocket. Or, at least it should be if it's made right. The sausage is the better option with the bacon tasting a little like Bac-Os. The fact that the sandwich includes the hashbrown just adds another level of goodness.

1. Qdoba Chorizo Breakfast Burrito

Behold, the best fast food breakfast item you can buy. Just look at this beauty. Yes, you can get it with other ingredients, but the chorizo is the best choice. The taste blends so well with the eggs, cheese, peppers and potatoes.

You can order it in a small or large size. Opt for the large and you'll consume roughly half of your daily value of fat for the day, based on a 2,000 calorie-per-day diet. So, it's probably not an everyday item. But, it's so good. Eat this and you can probably skip lunch.

Follow IndyStar Social Media Platforms Editor @JoeTamborello on Twitter and Instagram. He's currently on an elliptical.