- 2 days ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked professional chef Eric Huang, and meat experts Cara Nicoletti and Jake Dickson to give us their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent frozen chicken nugget brands found on supermarket shelves. Which nuggets pack the most bang for your buck, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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00:00We've gathered three professional chefs and meat purveyors to blind taste test every frozen
00:05chicken nugget we could get our hands on to see which ones meet their standards.
00:16Tyson Chicken Nuggets. The smell is really delicious. It's very nostalgic. I can smell
00:21like the toasted breadcrumbs. It's very like homogeneous. It feels like a Wendy's Nugget.
00:25They look really nicely golden. Spongy. What I'm looking for in my ideal nugget is a really
00:32crunchy crispy breading that has a nice level of seasoning. A nice cohesive coating that covers
00:38the entirety of the nugget. Nobody likes any bald spots on their nuggets. I'm looking for it to be
00:43juicy inside. I don't want it falling apart. It's a good bind but also not tough. A little bit of
00:49chew
00:49but mostly tenderness. We are talking about something that is made from ground chicken or a farce. It's
00:55different than a tender because a tender is whole muscle whereas something like this nugget has
01:01been ground and mixed almost to like a paste. I'm looking for like salty meaty kind of a juiciness
01:07that comes from the fat content. Really just a balance of flavors between that breaded seasoning
01:11and like a moist juicy chicken breast. The crunch is there. It actually has like a nice crunch to it.
01:18The taste is again really nostalgic. Classic chicken nugget. I have like a deeply carved emotional
01:23groove to nuggets. The interior is really juicy. Very smooth texture. It's a little bit bouncy.
01:29It's tender. It's not dry. You can see some air pockets where the emulsion took place. It's pretty
01:35good. It feels like a really classic nugget like maybe like a Tyson or a Purdue.
01:42Got it. Tyson brand chicken nuggets. No hormones or steroids added. Almost every chicken product says this
01:50but this is required by law. Hormones and steroids have been outlawed in chicken productions. Breading
01:56set in vegetable oil just means frying. It's a great way to fry something without saying that this has
02:01been fried before it gets to you. This definitely tasted like my childhood. Very familiar to me.
02:09Purdue Panko chicken nuggets. Oh this feels bouncier and denser. The chicken itself has a nice bouncy texture.
02:17But less breading. So this has a lot of chicken and a small amount of breading. Very delicate
02:22breading but cohesive breading. For this one more so than the Tyson one I can really taste the chicken.
02:31It has a nice flavor to it. It's salty. Though the crust is definitely not as crispy. It has a
02:35very thin
02:36kind of like mushy coating on it that comes off easily. It's like a gummy. It feels like maybe there
02:41was
02:42like a lot of modified starch used. So the starch helps the meat hold on to its emulsion and helps
02:48develop some of its texture. You could potentially use any kind of bread to bread a nugget. There are
02:54some brands that are using panko now. Panko usually has a much larger particulate size. So if they're
03:02saying it's panko it's like a really really finely ground panko. The meat doesn't feel quite as finely
03:09ground or cut up as the last one. So it could be a mixing issue. The main thing is you
03:14want a good
03:15bind and not too much bind. Otherwise something becomes tough. It feels really classic again like
03:20Purdue. This is a Purdue? Purdue nug? Yes, I was right. It's a Purdue. These are the panko nuggets. This
03:28doesn't feel like a panko experience to me. Panko should be made from Japanese bread and that has a very
03:35different crumb structure from the way it's manipulated and the way it's kneaded and then
03:40the way it's baked. So it has much more open texture. Whereas, you know, if you use something
03:43that was more like an Italian breadcrumb made from Western bread, it would be more of that like
03:47chicken parmesan texture. It's a much more tight breading. A good solid chicken nugget. It's not
03:52crispy. It's very gummy, which for panko should not be the case. I would guess they probably didn't
03:58use real panko. This is not panko. Because real panko is expensive. This has a no antibiotics ever
04:04claim. The antibiotics they were giving to chickens to prevent them from getting sick in over packed
04:10houses also helped them grow faster. Because Americans expect chicken to be cheap, it's pushed
04:17the industry in the chase of meeting that demand and profits to raise birds very, very quickly.
04:25All chickens, once they go to slaughter, they have to test negative for antibiotics. So
04:31even animals that were given antibiotics, it should be out of their system by the time
04:35that they're processed. But no antibiotics ever means that they were never given any
04:39antibiotics throughout their life cycle.
04:43Purdue, simply smart, organic, lightly breaded dino nuggets. We've got a T-Rex right here.
04:49A stegosaurus and maybe a swimming dinosaur? Who doesn't like a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget?
04:58Okay, that was kind of disappointing. Texture is not great. No crunch, like zero crunch.
05:04It's pretty chewy and dry. Very gummy, very starchy.
05:08Theoretically, the dino shape increases the surface area of the nugget. So it should have
05:14opportunities for more textures and crispy bits. But they kind of missed the mark with this one.
05:18They taste like salty breaded meat. Strong chicken flavor. Salt level is good.
05:24A good amount of grease. Not seeing any juice in here. The grease and the fattiness is probably
05:29coming from the par fry. All nuggets are pre-fried. Which is a really important step in a frozen nugget
05:35to
05:36keep the coating adhered to the chicken. You need the temperature to be at a certain range,
05:41at least above 325 degrees Fahrenheit. And there's a sweet spot where the water
05:47is evaporating at a rate that repels the oil from the coating while still making everything crisp.
05:53That's the problem with frying things at low temperatures is that you're not creating enough
05:58steam to repel the oil. So that's what the grease gets lodged into the breading. It's less than awesome.
06:04Because they're frozen, they can also be kind of like somewhat natural as well, right? So like you
06:09can make a chicken nugget without lots of chemicals in it. They are clearly targeted at a young audience
06:15that probably would have no issue with them.
06:17Ooh. Okay.
06:19Purdue strikes again. Oh, lightly breaded.
06:22Obviously the dino shapes are marketed towards children, but like the rest of this, the simply smart,
06:26the lightly breaded, is sort of giving like adult health food. I actually don't think the breading on
06:31this was any thinner than like the panko version. And they both had that kind of like gummy, starchy
06:37coating. I would pick this over a lot of the others just because it's organic and what that says
06:42about the way the animals are raised and what they're given. The USDA has standards for organic.
06:49It means that they have never had antibiotics, which is the big one for poultry. They also have a
06:53minimum amount of space they're allowed to have. And the other thing is that all the feed that they're fed
06:58also has to be certified organic. There was a stegosaurus shape in here. I didn't get one.
07:05Applegate Naturals chicken nuggets. Why is it so white?
07:09This is very, very pale. This is the most unusual one we have yet.
07:13They almost look like little biscuits. The coloring is not great on them.
07:17So we eat with our eyes and this like fractured breading is not giving me a lot of hope.
07:21And also it's the first one the crust is falling off on.
07:24Okay. Oh.
07:27The crust is crispier than I was expecting based on its color.
07:31Breading is coming off a little bit, but it doesn't have that starchy like gummy mouth feel.
07:38Maybe they didn't use enough starch to like get their breading to adhere.
07:42Very firm chicken texture. It feels almost like sort of distractingly firm.
07:49Because that can happen if the mix was like a little too tight or like over bound.
07:53This is really dry.
07:55Or maybe they just went for a really,
07:57really lean nugget because they want to keep the fat content low.
08:01There's almost no fat in the chicken breast. So if you're just using just the white meat
08:05and no chicken skin, it's going to be extremely lean product and could lead to something like this.
08:11When you grind a meat and then it comes into the presence of salt,
08:15the salt will break down the myofibrillar proteins. They sort of like create this gluey, bouncy structure.
08:21Meat has incredible water holding capacity. You can increase that too,
08:26by adding salt or phosphates or emulsifiers. So maybe they didn't use any ingredients like that.
08:33It's giving healthy. Who would have a healthy nugget?
08:36I think it might be Applegate.
08:38Applegate.
08:40Applegate.
08:41Ironically, the one I hate the most so far is the one that my wife buys for my son.
08:45These are a really popular brand. So it has a humanely raised label on it.
08:50Unfortunately, the free range and space rules when it comes to the USDA guidelines are pretty loose.
08:58Be able to use those marketing terms, they just have to have access to outdoor space.
09:02Ingredient list is actually quite large and in the middle of the back. It's actually above where the
09:07cooking instructions are. So they actually want you to look at them. They're hoping that you're in the
09:12back of the aisle and comparing ingredients and you'll see, huh, look, this stuff is normal.
09:17If you see breast meat, that means it's literally just the breast. If you see
09:22white meat, that could be the rib meat, the wings, or the tenderloin. All really good things. If it's
09:28important to you to use humanely raised chicken, this is a really nice option.
09:32It would just be nice if they tasted better.
09:36Good & Gather, chicken nuggets.
09:39It's a very appealing looking product.
09:41Really nice golden brown crust.
09:45Even though it is absolutely not handmade, they want it to look handmade. So they have like fancy
09:49machines that are like pressing them into these shapes.
09:52Black pepper evident on the surface. I want to eat that.
09:59Oh, weird taste. Sort of cardboardy.
10:03I always thought it was going to be like really crispy, you know, like fried chickeny. And it's,
10:07it's not. It definitely is crispy. This is one of the crispier ones I've had today. The color was set
10:12really beautifully beforehand. I think this is definitely a cheaper brand.
10:17This one's like really like aerated. Like it's really like loose. You can see lots of pockets in it.
10:21It looks like a piece of bread. It makes it kind of dry.
10:24Like it kind of looks like a, like a sponge.
10:27Yeah, this is pretty good.
10:29Good & Gather.
10:31Which is Target's private label brand.
10:34It's good. I gotta say.
10:36So far, this would be the bottom of my list.
10:40Oh, interesting. Caramelized sugar.
10:43That is perhaps what is making the coating so beautifully golden brown.
10:46There are plenty of inexpensive brands out there that deliver a really great value and a great product.
10:51And I gotta say, this is one of them.
10:54Bell & Devon's air chilled breaded chicken breast nuggets.
10:58Wow. These are whole muscle. They're not like an emulsified product.
11:02I would say this is something more like a chicken bite.
11:04It's chicken breast. If you are manufacturing a nugget like this, especially this pyramidal shape,
11:11would be a weird one to end up with. Because it's like all the others are basically the same thickness.
11:18Very irregular.
11:19It's weirdly soft.
11:20Look.
11:21Oh.
11:21Mmm. It's really good, honestly. It's the most chicken-y so far.
11:25Very, very juicy. And I think because of that, the crust got like a little bit
11:28gummy, but it does have a nice crunch to it.
11:31The breading is weird in that it's both soggy and a little bit crispy at the same time,
11:35depending on the bites.
11:36A big piece of gristle.
11:38Gristle is like some kind of connective tissue, and like that's fine. This is a whole piece of
11:42animal muscle.
11:43I'm more off-put by the tenderness of the chicken breast than I am on the lack of tenderness.
11:48But again, that's me more just knowing about chicken.
11:50Oh, wow.
11:51All right. Bell & Evans.
11:53What's interesting about Bell & Evans is they take a lot of pride in air chilling.
11:57After a chicken is slaughtered, you want to chill it very rapidly, right? And that chilling can happen
12:02in two ways.
12:03The most common way that they'll be chilled after slaughter is in a water bath, just a cold water
12:08bath with some sort of chlorine solution.
12:10That's the cheapest and like most efficient.
12:12This affects the texture of the skin, the meat takes on a lot of water.
12:16Air chilling is like you're hanging the carcasses and they're sort of moving through a blast chiller,
12:21removing the heat from their body like a little bit slower. It pulls some of the moisture out.
12:25So then they're also adding, says contains up to 6% marinade of water and sea salt.
12:31They're pumping the chicken breast full of marinade. 6% is like not a small amount.
12:35So that will definitely make it more tender.
12:38It's definitely a really juicy piece of chicken. I think of all the ingredient lists that I've seen
12:44so far, I think this is the smallest ingredient deck, which is really impressive.
12:51This is like pretty much if you were to make nuggets in your own home is what you'd have.
12:56Yummy Dino Buddies. Dinosaur shaped chicken breast nuggets.
13:00Oh, we're back to dino nugs. These are larger dinosaurs. They seem to be the same species.
13:06Okay, this is a pterodactyl. This is again a T-Rex.
13:10They're very floppy.
13:13Actually very crispy. There's very little chicken.
13:16Almost 50-50 meat to breading ratio. It just tastes like breading.
13:20This has no chicken flavor at all. Not juicy.
13:23It's probably one of the thinner ones we've seen today.
13:25Breading is like very loose. As we can see, it's kind of coming apart.
13:28The batter is not very good. They taste a little bit like raw flour, like an undercooked sugar cookie.
13:34It's definitely like got a spongy, like kind of open texture to it. It almost looks like honeycombed on the
13:39inside.
13:39I would cook them probably double the amount of time to give them some crispiness and texture.
13:44The problem with home ovens and something like this is that every home oven is wildly different.
13:50Even depending on which like tray it's on or which rack it's on, it cooks completely differently.
13:56The other one was all right. This one's worse.
13:58I think this is Yummy Dino Nuggets.
14:01Yeah, that's the brand, right? Yummy Dino Buddies.
14:04Yeah, my nieces ate a lot of these.
14:06This strikes me as one of those things they put low on the freezer shelf.
14:10So when the kids are walking by, they see it and then they bug their mom about it and be
14:14like,
14:15I want this.
14:15They're just like a very easy, uncomplicated chicken nugget.
14:19I would have made them thicker.
14:21It's very normal to have some sort of leavener-like baking powder.
14:25It's going to aerate the breading to make it crispier once you fry it up.
14:29Not a great nugget.
14:32Great value, chicken nuggets.
14:35Nice bread crumb textures.
14:37I can see like really big pieces of black pepper in the breading.
14:43Very crispy.
14:44It's a pretty solid nugget.
14:45Pretty good.
14:46Breading is adhering well.
14:48It has like a fat side and a thin side.
14:50So it gives a little bit of like a textural differences to it.
14:54The meat texture is nice.
14:56It's, you know, especially compared to the last one.
14:58There's more chicken per nugget.
14:59It is heating the juicy tender mart.
15:01It's very similar to the good and gather.
15:04Ooh, great value.
15:06Walmart.
15:07Apparently this is one of the cheapest that we're tasting today.
15:10It's good though.
15:11I'm kind of surprised at how good it is.
15:12They're not making any claims.
15:14They just concentrated on making it tasty.
15:16And I think that they succeeded in that.
15:19Good, solid, crispy chicken nugget.
15:22Better Goods gluten-free chicken nuggets.
15:25Very, very fine breadcrumbs.
15:27They're very thin and yellow.
15:29And a lot of the ones we've had so far have some measure of yellow corn flour in them to
15:33probably improve the color to some degree.
15:35The breading is definitely, didn't get super crispy.
15:38It's a little soggy, but it is adhering really nicely to the chicken nugget itself.
15:43All right.
15:45I don't like the crust.
15:47There's no discernible like pieces on the surface here.
15:50So that means that breadcrumbs are very small.
15:53Whereas a gluten-free, it is definitely more challenging to make a gluten-free nugget
15:58crispy.
15:58And also it's harder to make it adhere to the nugget itself.
16:02What they use is like a lot of modified starches and xanthan gum to create the gumminess and the pull,
16:07but you're never really going to quite get the same chew as you will with gluten.
16:11So they're, um, they all have a very like short texture, a very like cake-like texture.
16:16Pretty juicy.
16:16Ooh, ooh, a drip.
16:18That's the first one.
16:18Let's say Best Buy.
16:20No, wait.
16:20The Best Buy doesn't sell chicken.
16:23Oh, they are gluten-free.
16:25Look at that.
16:25I could barely tell that this was a gluten-free nugget.
16:29Instead of wheat flour, they're using yellow corn flour, rice flour, corn meal,
16:33which I definitely can like feel and see, which like in and of itself has a pretty nice flavor
16:39and a nice chew.
16:40Honestly, really delicious.
16:44Collipower, all natural chicken nuggets.
16:47We've got the classic boot shape.
16:49I don't know what it is.
16:49Even McDonald's has like five shapes that they do to make it seem more natural that they're
16:54not all the same.
16:55These are the brownest, the toastiest nuggets I've seen.
17:00Oh.
17:00Oh, crazy smell.
17:02What am I smelling?
17:05Yeah, it's pretty crunchy.
17:06I wish it was crispier though.
17:08It has more of like a battered texture.
17:09It's very brittle, kind of mushy.
17:12The breading is so overpowering in its flavor.
17:15I almost like can't taste the chicken.
17:17You actually can see like there's like a double layer of breading.
17:21Is this a cauliflower breading?
17:23It smells like cauliflower.
17:25Wow.
17:26Oh, cauliflower.
17:28Wow, that is some terrible branding.
17:30The I Love It Nugget.
17:31Um, that's kind of a weird marketing term.
17:33Gluten-free always.
17:35So the cauliflower I'm pretty sure that they're using is
17:39probably dehydrated, almost like a flower.
17:41It must be folded into the breading after being pulsed very fine.
17:44There's corn flour, chickpea flour, oat fiber, and then dried cauliflowers.
17:50A lot of different flours, a lot of different starches and gums,
17:55which is probably why this breading feels like so thick.
17:58And I did think this one was more flavorful than other ones.
18:00I wouldn't say I love it, but you know, as far as gluten-free stuff goes,
18:05I thought this was better than the other gluten-free one.
18:07I would say overall quite successful.
18:11Kid Fresh Chicken Nuggets.
18:14This one's kind of heart-shaped.
18:15They seem to have a nice little crust to them.
18:17A large breading particulate, very greasy, super, super greasy.
18:24Really not crispy.
18:25However they were fried in the factory, they have taken a lot of the oil with them.
18:32It definitely tastes like a cafeteria chicken nugget.
18:35I'm guessing this was just vegetable oil of some sort,
18:37maybe like soybean or corn, which can have like kind of a greasy feel to them.
18:41They eat very differently.
18:43If you put 15 of these in front of me, like I could probably eat them.
18:46They're very little and cute.
18:47Oh, is it a Kid Fresh?
18:49Kid Fresh.
18:51And it's like a very familiar, comforting chicken nugget.
18:54Wow. Oh, this is incredible actually.
18:56There's cauliflower in this?
18:57Cauliflower and onions inside of the chicken nugget.
19:00Trick your children to eat their vegetables.
19:02That's really hard to do and still get like a really good protein extraction,
19:05a really good bounce and bind.
19:08I'm very impressed with this.
19:09And there's also a second thing here.
19:10They're using whole grain flour for the breading.
19:13So there's whole wheat flour, I think, in the actual nugget itself.
19:17I think maybe that's being used to hold some of the moisture from the vegetables.
19:21There's onion powder, garlic powder, and celery seeds, which is like what I associate most with
19:26chicken nugget flavors, which maybe is why it tastes so familiar to me and nostalgic.
19:31Very successful job at hiding the cauliflower and the onions.
19:33Maybe it's part of the size and the surface area.
19:36They don't taste bland at all.
19:38Good for them.
19:38I would buy this to replace the Applegate one they currently get for my son.
19:44Trader Joe's Refrigerated Organic Chicken Nuggets.
19:48It's kind of blonde, kind of patchy.
19:50It almost has like a gray tint to it, which is kind of strange.
19:54Looks a little rough, but there is an aroma to it though.
19:58Like there's a good amount of spices in the breading.
20:00Mm-hmm.
20:04Oh.
20:05The crust is kind of thick, but not that crunchy.
20:08The interior is very bouncy.
20:10It could just be like really, really mixed.
20:12See, it's like a perfect cutout of my bite.
20:15It's not juicy, but it's tender.
20:17It's kind of sweet.
20:19There's some kind of really dominant spice here, and I don't know what it is.
20:22This has the most like breading flavoring that I've tried so far.
20:27Like there's definitely a good amount of spices in the breading,
20:32which I think would appeal more to like an adult audience.
20:35I don't really like this one very much.
20:37It's giving like maybe like AI slop feeling.
20:40Is this a Trader Joe's Chicken Nugget?
20:43They usually rigorously test the products they have,
20:46which is why I think so many people love Trader Joe's, right?
20:48They sell one of this type of cereal or one of this peanut butter.
20:53So it surprises me a little bit that this product is not that great.
20:56This is the only refrigerated chicken nugget that I have seen on the market.
21:02Why would you do that?
21:04I don't see the benefits of that at all.
21:06Think about what's happening in the refrigerator.
21:08It's not like a completely stable product.
21:10So there's a interaction between the interior ingredients
21:13and the crust that's constantly happening.
21:15This product is evolving for every minute that sits in their refrigerator.
21:20Whereas a frozen product is essentially frozen in time.
21:23Things are more perishable in the presence of oxygen.
21:25For this to stay in your refrigerator for a month refrigerated.
21:30There's nothing I would leave refrigerated that's not a pickle
21:32in my refrigerator for a month and still eat it.
21:35And this is a cooked meat product.
21:37The freezing is a really important step in getting a crispy shell.
21:43Usually they're IQF frozen, individually quick frozen.
21:46And that really helps like seal the crust in and on.
21:50Not my favorite today.
21:51Not my favorite, but it's good.
21:55Earth's best.
21:56All natural baked chicken nuggets.
21:58What is this?
21:59We have a totally new shape that we have not seen before.
22:02These are almost like a little fried meatball.
22:04It has like a really nice toasty color.
22:06Give it the bounce test.
22:07Quite firm.
22:10There's like a funny taste.
22:12It could be the breading.
22:13It's very like a drier crust, which I guess why it's all a little crispy.
22:18You can kind of taste how dark the crust is.
22:20It has like a toasted baked bread flavor.
22:24It's probably actually one of the driest meats we've had so far.
22:27And not very flavorful.
22:29There's very little fat.
22:30To give the chicken nugget juiciness,
22:32they'll usually add some sort of water,
22:35maybe broth for some higher quality ones.
22:37And they will also add fat.
22:39With some chicken nuggets, because it's breast,
22:42they'll add skin, which helps with the moisture and the fat content.
22:45If the skin is already on the breast when you grind it,
22:49you don't have to declare it on the label.
22:50I would say the breading has a lot more flavor than the chicken itself.
22:53Got it.
22:54Mmm.
22:55Earth's best for kids.
22:57You do have water as the second ingredient,
22:59but that's not unusual for these.
23:01Pretty much every nugget that we've tested has water as a pretty high up ingredient.
23:06The meat will retain water to a certain extent,
23:08but depending on the extra ingredients like phosphates or stabilizers that you add,
23:13it will hold more.
23:14If you use like phosphates would be the kind of extreme example.
23:18It increases the water holding capacity of protein to like a ridiculous degree.
23:23To the point where they have to regulate it,
23:25because you could double the amount of water in like a chicken breast.
23:28It's not great.
23:32Impossible plant-based chicken nuggets.
23:34They look like almost like little sugar cookies.
23:36They look like very perfectly crafted.
23:38I'm getting a chemical smell like it's wafting up to me.
23:43The breading's not really doing it for me.
23:45It's like kind of gritty.
23:46They have a thick battering on them or thick crust that's not crunchy at all.
23:51The breading is totally falling off.
23:54It tastes like freezer a little bit.
23:56It almost has like a cardboardy aftertaste.
23:58The meat is very soft and kind of like like mushy seeming.
24:03It's not juicy.
24:04I don't know if there's like a filler of some sort.
24:07My first thought when I smelled it was like this is fake meat.
24:10I think this is a vegan product.
24:11It definitely has that plant-based protein like bounce to it.
24:15But again like so does a chicken nugget.
24:16So it's kind of hard to tell the difference.
24:18It's just the the taste where you can tell that this is plant-based.
24:24Impossible.
24:25Ah yeah the impossible nugget.
24:28That makes sense.
24:29I have no problem with vegetarianism.
24:31I am largely vegetarian and pescatarian in my household.
24:35I have a couple problems with impossible and the other meat substitutes in that they are highly
24:39processed products.
24:40Why are we substituting a whole food for a processed food?
24:44I'll give you guys credit.
24:45I thought it was chicken.
24:46They're adding in zinc, vitamin B3, B5, B1, B6, B2, B12.
24:50Which are things that muscle meat just like naturally have.
24:54Billions of dollars have been spent to develop it.
24:56But it's still not very good.
24:58I'd rather have like a cauliflower or a black bean burger.
25:00When you put honey mustard on anything it works.
25:05Pilgrims Ultimate Nuggets.
25:07Good like breading particulate.
25:09They've got the boot shape which is a classic.
25:14It's pretty good.
25:16Oh very juicy.
25:17I like the interior texture.
25:19It's kind of like fluffy but not in a bad way.
25:22It's kind of juicy too.
25:23There is a funny off taste.
25:26What is that?
25:27Is this plant-based too?
25:29Or is there just soy
25:32filler in it?
25:33It's got a little black pepper on the crust which I like.
25:35There's like a lot of onion powder and garlic powder.
25:38These are attempting to simulate a very meaty flavor.
25:42So they're pretty heavy on like the MSG and that stuff.
25:44Which is perfectly fine and tasty.
25:47It's a solid chicken nugget.
25:50Pilgrims.
25:50It's kind of funny that there's Ultimate Nuggets.
25:52I almost thought there was cauliflower in this.
25:54Because there was like a sulfury taste.
25:56I would not call it the Ultimate Nugget.
25:59I would say it is the ultimately fine nugget.
26:03Kid Cuisine level up dino chicken nuggets.
26:06We have more dino nuggets.
26:10Third dino nugget of the day?
26:11They almost look like they should be like buffalo or something.
26:13Nice brown color.
26:15Black pepper in the crust.
26:17It's very sad and floppy.
26:18It's my first impression.
26:20And kind of sticky.
26:21It's holding.
26:22If we'll recall that we had one dino nugget that was quite floppy.
26:27Smells good.
26:29Doesn't taste good though.
26:30That is not a good nugget.
26:32Super dry.
26:33No crunch.
26:36Very gummy.
26:37It's probably the mushiest nugget we've had today.
26:39Did we microwave this nugget?
26:40If you think of how an oven works, you are cooking from the outside in.
26:44If you think about microwave, we're sending microwaves that are vibrating the water molecules
26:49in the food and they're heating up and they're going to give off steam.
26:52Which is basically going to steam the nugget from the inside out.
26:55You're basically releasing water vapor into the crust that you're hoping to dry out essentially.
27:00And microwaves are terrible at crisping things up.
27:02You can taste the black pepper for sure.
27:04Which is funny because I don't think kids like that.
27:07Is it some sort of like freezer home meal?
27:09This is what astronauts eat.
27:11Oh!
27:12We had TV dinner.
27:13I loved TV dinners when I was kid.
27:15They're very efficient for some things and I do think they're underappreciated
27:17and wrongly maligned thanks to a long smear campaign towards microwaves.
27:21Oh, like a yogurt pretzel?
27:24Kid cuisine!
27:26For one meal to take up this space is definitely not a New York City apartment.
27:30This is why air fryers are like the greatest invention for the home cook in 30 years.
27:35Because in the same amount of time it probably would have taken to microwave this,
27:39you could have thrown in the air fryer and ended up with like a pretty delicious lunch.
27:43This is the only one actually that I see that just says chicken instead of chicken breast,
27:49which is fine.
27:50It just means that the chicken is coming from like any part of the chicken.
27:54I think if you're five like it's just it's just calories.
27:58You got to take the W's where you can get them, right?
28:00Now let's see which chicken nuggets our chefs liked the most and the least.
28:04I would say my favorite nugget of the day was the classic Tyson chicken nugget.
28:11Very nostalgic, had a really crispy, crunchy outer coating and it had a moist
28:16chickeny chicken on the inside.
28:18My favorite would be the Kid Fresh, one with the cauliflower and other vegetables,
28:22no antibiotic claim. That's the one I would buy for my family.
28:26The texture was great, the flavor was good.
28:27I'm gonna have to give it to Good & Gather, the Target brand.
28:30They had really beautiful color, had a nice crispy crust.
28:33It wasn't too greasy and then the filling, you know,
28:36it would have just the right amount of balance and juiciness and seasoning.
28:39Well done.
28:40My least favorite was probably the Good & Gather.
28:43It just had a really off flavor and I couldn't even tell if it was chicken.
28:47The worst by far is the microwave tray one.
28:50Kid cuisine just shouldn't be on the market.
28:52You're setting your customer up for failure.
28:54My least favorite nugget today.
28:57I gotta unfortunately give it to you the Trader Joe's.
29:00I don't know what was going on with that thing.
29:01There was a strange aftertaste. It was kind of oddly sweet.
29:04I just think a refrigerator nugget has so many more opportunities for something to go wrong.
29:08Chicken nuggets get a really bad rap as being mystery meat and over processed,
29:15but they're a good convenient source of protein for your kids or for yourself.
29:19Regardless of what it says in the package, put them in your air fryer
29:23and that will triple the quality of the end product.
29:26Respect the nugget. It exists for a reason.
29:28And just get a strong dipping sauce game.
29:30Nugged out.
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