I ate my way through Wawa's hot hoagie menu and ranked them from worst to best

• During a recent road trip, I stopped at a Wawa in Pennsylvania and tried six types of hot hoagies.

• I ranked the marinara chicken hoagie last and the Buffalo chicken hoagie first.

• The bread on all of the sandwiches was fluffy and sweet, making even my least favorite ones better.

One of the best parts of a road trip is picking spots to eat from the highway.

So when I was driving through Pennsylvania, I decided to pull into Wawa, a gas station and convenience store known for its sandwiches, to try its hot hoagies.

I got six different variations, ordering all of them untoasted for the sake of consistency. Wawa lets you customize almost every part of a sandwich, but I tried each one exactly the way it showed up on the store's menu.

I ate them in the car, and as you might imagine, there's nothing better than trying to swallow while battling off motion sickness. Read on for my ranking of the hoagies, listed from worst to best.

The marinara chicken-cheesesteak hoagie didn't taste as bad as I expected, but it was still my least favorite.

First Impression: I don't believe marinara should be on chicken, so this hoagie didn't sound very appetizing. It was one of the last items I ate, so it had cooled off to room temperature by the time I got around to trying it.

Review: It wasn't as bad as I expected, but I still think that putting marinara on bland chicken should be outlawed. I felt like I was at a youth basketball fundraiser eating this.

This sandwich ranked last in my taste test.

I didn't love the meat on the chicken-cheesesteak hoagie and thought it tasted bland.

First Impression: This hoagie didn't sound extremely appealing either, though I figured that chicken and cheese are a difficult combination to mess up. Jalapeños are typically fine on other items, but I didn't think they fit on this sandwich.

Review: I thought this hoagie was both bland in flavor and overly salty. The cheese didn't spread well on the bread, and the chicken lacked flavor. The jalapeños were quite spicy, which was for the best since their flavor overwhelmed my taste buds. The sauce was fine and tasted like Buffalo, but I think this the sandwich needed more cheese to be truly palatable.

The combination of the steak and red sauce in the marinara beef cheesesteak didn't work for me.

First Impression: I was curious about what marinara and Parmesan would taste like together on a meat-heavy sandwich. Steak and red sauce isn't my go-to combination (it sounded weird), but I was willing to give it a shot.

Review: This hoagie reminded me of the food I ate in my school cafeteria, so maybe I would've enjoyed it more when I was younger. Even after finishing, I was unconvinced that steak should be paired with marinara. A high-quality veal Parm is one thing, but I think a tough steak like this one is best on an egg sandwich. I thought the cheese was also way too salty.

The cheesesteak wasn't necessarily unique or complex, but all the toppings tasted great.

First Impression: This sandwich seemed so simple that it almost looked underwhelming. However, I love steak and cheese, so I figured there was no way it would be bad. Plus, I was curious about the barbecue sauce.

Review: The cheesesteak only had three ingredients — steak, cheese, and barbecue sauce — and all three were quite good. The sweet sauce saved the meal by giving the otherwise bland cheesesteak some additional flavor. The cheese complemented everything, and I thought the fluffy bread tied the sandwich together.

I didn't love how the meatball hoagie looked at first glance, but it tasted delicious.

First Impression: The meatballs on my sandwich looked a little gray, which was unsettling. The Parm looked good, but I had a hard time imagining that it was enough to turn the tide. In my opinion, Subway's meatball sub is the gold standard, so I wanted to see how this one compared.

Review: I enjoyed it a lot (maybe even more than the one from Subway). The red sauce was sweet, which confused me at first but ultimately worked. The cheeses tasted like provolone and Parmesan, and they went really well together. The meatballs were solid and carried other flavors well despite their color. Then again, I've never had a bad meatball. The bread also seemed especially fluffy on this sandwich.

The Buffalo-chicken hoagie was simple and packed with flavor, making it the clear winner.

First Impression: This hoagie was the most appetizing sandwich I got from Wawa. The receipt listed the sauce as marinara, but it looked more like Buffalo. If the Wawa employee accidentally mixed them up, I considered it a happy mistake.

Review: This sandwich might not have had a ton on it, but it was all-around good. I was right about the Buffalo sauce, and it tasted perfect on the bread. This sandwich was also durable, making it one of the best options to eat on the road.

It was a close race between the meatball hoagie and the Buffalo-chicken hoagie, but the latter ultimately took home the prize.

It was practically a tie between the Buffalo chicken hoagie and the meatball hoagie, but I'm giving the Buffalo the top spot because of how easy it was to eat in the car. Both were great and stood out, especially when I compare them to the lowest-ranked sandwiches.

Also, the bread on each Wawa hoagie was excellent. I'm glad I didn't get the sandwiches toasted because they didn't need to be. They were on some of the fluffiest, sweetest bread I've had.

I never felt like I was getting full off the bread alone, and it made even the worst sandwiches taste better. In fact, I think I would've preferred this Wawa bread with some butter over the first three sandwiches.

Correction: June 27, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated the location of the Wawa where the writer stopped. There is no Wawa in Rome, Pennsylvania. The nearest one is about two hours away in White Haven, Pennsylvania. 

Read the original article on Insider