What’s New in Fast Food This Month? Secret Menu Drinks, Spicy Orange Chicken & Hot Dogs Galore

Taco Bell is taking fan-favorite menu tweaks to the next level with a brand-new Fan Style feature on its app. Fan Style allows guests to build one-of-a-kind orders, name and save them to their app profile and share them with other app users. You’ll also score chances to earn rewards, ad placements and even a spot on the national menu.

If you're more about eating what's already on the menu, know that the chain just released Dulce de Leche Cinnabon Delights on July 31, stuffed with dulce de leche filling and finished with salted caramel coating. Even better, Taco Bell is offering $1 two-packs from July 31 through August 6, exclusively through Uber Eats.

Through August 11, you can try a loaded lineup of four new hot dogs at Shake Shack, which join the classic flat-top dog on the menu for a limited time. Options include a spicy Hight Heat Dog with pickled cherry peppers, a chili dog crowned with Angus beef, a Fried Pickle Dog and, my favorite, a weenie topped with crispy onions and cheese sauce.

The coffee chain released an app-only secret menu on July 14. Four custom drinks—including a cookie-topped cold brew and a Mango Dragonfruit Lemonade Refresher with vanilla sweet cream cold foam—were added to the app for a limited time, meaning you won’t need to manually modify the drinks yourself (or rattle them off in person to the cashier).

Starbucks also announced that the Pumpkin Spice Latte, along with the fan-favorite Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai, Pecan Crunch Oatmilk Latte and the all-new Pecan Oatmilk Cortado, are hitting stores on August 26 ahead of the fall season.

Dunkin's summer lineup hit stores on June 25, but you still have time to taste your way through it if you haven't already. The star of the menu is Sabrina’s Strawberry Dream Refresher, made with creamy oat milk, sweet strawberry flavor and silky-smooth cold foam. It's the second collab the coffee chain has made with Sabrina Carpenter, the first being Sabrina’s Brown Sugar Shakin’ Espresso. There are also three ice cream-inspired frozen coffees, a new Chipotle Hash Brown Wake-Up Wrap and a braided apple pie, to name a few more.

Even more exciting, two new Refreshers were just added to the lineup: the Golden Hour, a tropical mix of Mango Pineapple and Strawberry Dragonfruit flavors and lemonade, and the Blueberry Breeze. (P.S.: Dunkin’ Rewards members score $3 medium Refreshers through August 19.)

KFC is joining the ranks of Shake Shack, Sonic, Popeye's and Del Taco by selling a new pickle item, Kentucky Fried Pickles. (The aforementioned chains have respectively released fried pickle chips, pickle slushes, pickle lemonade and pickle tacos this year alone.)

The limited-time menu item is paired with an impressive Free Bucket on Us deal, available on the KFC app and website. Guests who spend $15 or more will unlock the deal and score a free bucket of chicken while supplies last.

Starting on August 5, you can wash Whataburger's handhelds down with a new Dr Pepper Blackberry Shake. The bev is cool, creamy and fruity with a vanilla shake base, Dr Pepper and blackberry flavoring. Try one on August 8 for National Whataburger Day, when Whataburger Rewards members can grab a #1 Whataburger for just 75 cents in the app or online from 11am to 8pm, in honor of the chain's 75th birthday.

Behold: the Dino Mini Menu. Launched on June 24, this dinosaur-themed lineup is still available for noshing. It includes a fun scooped ice cream, complete with blue and green swirls of vanilla and Mother’s Mighty Dynamite Dinosaur Chocolatey Cookies, as well as a Flying Saucer ice cream sandwich, made with blue and green vanilla and two chocolatey wafers.

Swicy foods are still super popular, so it's no surprise that Panda Express fans were clamoring for the return of a spicy iteration of its sweet-and-sour Original Orange Chicken. Available through September 30 while supplies last, the dish is spiked with dried chili flakes and the crushed chiles for a punch of heat that totally complements the O.G.

In case you're hungry for more, Panda Express is also adding Dynamite Sweet & Sour Chicken to the menu on August 6 at select locations ahead of a national rollout. It's the chain's spiciest menu item to date, and features crispy, marinated chicken coated in a puffed rice batter, red bell peppers, onions and a custom take on buldak sauce, an extra-hot, savory Korean hot sauce.

On the heels of its new Chicken Wraps launch (and Snack Wrap mania, which brought plenty of fast food chicken wraps to the forefront), Popeye's just dropped limited-time Chicken Dippers, aka thin strips of white breast meat, hand-battered in the chain's signature Louisiana garlic and spice blend. 

Better yet, its first-ever Signature Sauce has also joined the menu, presumably as an ideal pairing for the Dippers. It features bell pepper, celery, onion, garlic and a touch of hot sauce. This one's on the menu for good.

If you haven't had the pleasure of going to one of the 1,000+ Dutch Bros stores across the country, now's the time. The fun coffee chain just dreamed up three mocktail-inspired drinks for a limited time this summer: the Mudslide Mocha, the Strawberry Colada and the Blue Lagoon with Strawberry Fruit.

The ever-popular Fizz is also officially on the menu now; it combines a flavor of your choice with sparkling water and a citrus twist. 

Smashburger and Shake Shack are putting their best dogs forward this summer. The former released its new Summer of Smash menu, which features a bold lineup of four All-Angus Big Dogs on butter-grilled rolls. Limited-time options include the Americana (ketchup, mustard, sweet relish and red onion), the Bacon Cheese, the Chili Cheese and the Chili Cheese Jalapeño.

Also back on the menu is the Smoked Brisket Bacon Smash, made with 14-hour smoked Texas-style brisket, along with a new chocolate chip cookie dough shake and a Chilled Chicken Chef Salad.

No one minds a late-night snack at the end of a wedding. In honor of this universal truth, Pizza Hut invented a three-tiered, five-foot-tall pizza tower made of new Hut Lover’s pizzas, complete with pepperoni rosettes, tomato toppers and edible flowers. The After Pizza Cake is available for pizza-loving couples in NYC, LA and Atlanta to enter and win this summer, as long as they're getting married between September 2 and November 30.

As if Cinnabon's icing-glazed rolls weren't drool-worthy enough already, there's a new Reese's lineup available for the summer that's the definition of decadence. There's a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Bon topped with peanut butter cup pieces and caramel, as well as a Chocolate Peanut Butter Candy Bon topped with chocolate sauce and Reese's Pieces minis. Most enticing to me is the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Chillatta, a creamy frozen sipper blended with PB cup pieces, then topped with whipped cream and Reese's Pieces minis.

It's no secret that bakeries, restaurants, cafés and even fast food joints (looking at you, Shake Shack) have experienced full Dubai Chocolate-ification this year. Paris Baguette is no exception, as the brand launched a Dubai Chocolate Tart, mochi donut and matcha latte in honor of the confection earlier this year.

Now for a limited time, you can get these items all over again, along with the new Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Pizzetta (pizzetta dough, custard, chocolate, pistachio cream, kataifi and fresh strawberries) and the Dubai Chocolate Macchiato (pistachio matcha latte over ice, topped with chocolate mousse soft cream, kataifi, chocolate sauce and crushed pistachios).

Oh, did I mention the additional lineup of fruit-infused matcha lattes, also available for the summer while supplies last?