We Tried 11 of the 2025 New Iowa State Fair Foods – Here Are Our Favorites

Just last week, the Iowa State Fair officially revealed more than 60 new foods that will debut at next month’s annual fair! Brain and I got the opportunity to try 11 of those foods yesterday (7/15) at a special judging event in Des Moines.

For the last few years, the Iowa State Fair has been hosting an exclusive tasting event for members of the media where they get to help decide on the top three new foods for the upcoming fair. This year, I went on a mission to get us invited. Obviously, I was successful, and we had a BLAST! We even made it on the Facebook Live Stream a few times.

Now, before we get into more details about our experience, here are the 11 new foods we got to try at the event (in no particular order):

1. Bacon Chicken Ranch Eggroll, Winn & Sara’s Kitchen
2. Nashville Hot Chicken Mac n’ Cheese Pizza Slice, Wiseguys Woodfired Pizza
3. Three Little Pigs, Whatcha Smokin? BBQ
4. Maple Bacon Bourbon Grilled Cheese, What’s Your Cheez
5. Chicken Pickle Ranch Rocket on a Stick, JR’s SouthPork Ranch
6. Sweet Granny’s Apple Delight Sundae, Applishus
7. The Butter Cow Tornado, Dairy Zone
8. The Scotcheroo Shake, Over The Top
9. Potato Half & Half Korean Corn Dog, GoldenKDog
10. Hawaiian Hog, Iowa Pork Producers
11. HoQ Lamb Wrap, HoQ

Now, before we get to the OFFICIAL top three for 2025, I’m going to share with you the top three that Brain and I chose. Here are our personal picks, in the order that we voted for them:

Courtlin’s Top 3:

1. Potato Half & Half Korean Corn Dog
2. Maple Bacon Bourbon Grilled Cheese
3. The Butter Cow Tornado

Brain’s Top 3:

1. Maple Bacon Bourbon Grilled Cheese
2. Chicken Pickle Ranch Rocket on a Stick
3. The Butter Cow Tornado

As you can see, Brain and I were pretty much in agreement about our favorites. Unfortunately, not one of our choices made the actual top three! To be fair, though, there was really only one thing that I didn’t like out of the 11 items, so it was tough to narrow it down. Here are the top 3 fair food finalists for 2025, according to the panel of almost 100 judges (in no particular order):

• The Scotcheroo Shake
• Three Little Pigs
• Bacon Chicken Ranch Eggroll

The Iowa State Fair also handed out an extra award this year to the sweetest fair food, in honor of the 2025 fair theme “Fair Sweet Fair.” That also went to the Scotcheroo Shake from Over the Top…

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