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Separating crispy dreams from cafeteria nightmares.
In a Nutshell
We taste-tested chicken tenders from 15 major fast-food chains, scoring each on breading, chicken quality, seasoning, freshness, and value. One chain emerged as the clear winner, with two others close behind, while many familiar favorites were dragged down by bland seasoning, soggy breading, and stale fryer oil.
No disrespect to apple pie, but we can think of a few things that might be even more American. Hot dogs and hamburgers usually get top billing, but we’d like to propose another contender: the chicken tender.
Likely younger than both e-mail and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the chicken tender has muscled its way into the national diet since the 1970s. It’s the main attraction at some of the country’s fastest-growing chains, including Raising Cane’s, Zaxby’s, and Slim Chickens.
For some cranks, it’s also become a symbol of Americans’ childish palates. The diminutive nickname doesn’t help—it’s hard to defend the cultural importance of a tendie. But for us, it doesn’t have to be all that serious. There’s little to mock and plenty to appreciate about crispy pieces of white-meat chicken, optimized for dunking.
At least, in theory.
In practice, we have some notes. After sampling chicken tenders at 15 of the country’s most popular fast-food outlets, we identified persistent problems. Most of our fast-food tenders were underseasoned and timidly fried, with little color or crunch. The most common tasting note across all of our tests? Old fryer oil.
Keep reading to find out what separated the tenders of our dreams from those that ate like they’d been plucked off a cafeteria steam table.
The Criteria
First, we scored each tender contender on four criteria, rating each from 1 to 5. We also evaluated value separately, though it did not factor into the composite score (we’ll get into that later).
Breading. We sampled tenders with a range of breading styles, from sandy breadcrumbs (Culver’s) to cornflake-y panko nubbins (Popeye’s, Church’s) to a slick, tempura-style batter (Long John Silver’s). Regardless of style, tenders earned points for color and crispness and lost them when the breading was limp, greasy, or pale.
Chicken quality. A good tender should, at a bare minimum, be made from whole muscle chicken, not mechanically separated Nugget Meat. With that criterion met, we awarded points for flavor, moisture, and texture—i.e., whether the chicken was overbrined and rubbery or supple and juicy.
Seasoning. Contenders as a whole skewed bland, and scores were low in this category across the board. But we did find one surprising standout: KFC. While the restaurant’s tenders didn’t land in our top three overall, they were the most assertively seasoned tenders we tried. KFC has long boasted about its “11 herbs and spices.” Its competitors could use a few more.
Freshness. If we learned one thing from this test, it’s that few restaurants are changing their fryer oil frequently enough. The tenders that scored highest in this category had no stale, bitter, fishy, or otherwise “off” flavors. That’s a low bar to clear—still, only a few did.
Finally, we rendered tender judgment on one other dimension, value, though we’ve reported it separately from the composite score.
Assessing value across restaurants isn’t straightforward: the number of tenders per order varies, as does tender size, from barely larger than a nugget to a massive plank. “Chicken tender” doesn’t even mean the same thing from restaurant to restaurant. Some are serving actual tenders, made from the delicate pectoralis minor muscle that’s located under the breast, while others are serving strips of chicken breast.
To get a sense of the true value, we weighed each order immediately upon receipt—yes, we travel with a kitchen scale—and calculated the cost per ounce of chicken rather than per tender or per order.
We expected an inverse relationship between quality and value. The results were more mixed. Our number-one-ranked tender, Wingstop, had the second-lowest cost per ounce. And one of our worst-ranked tenders, Popeye’s (pale, bland, and limp despite the thick, cornflake-textured coating), was also one of the priciest.
While it didn’t factor into our overall ranking, we’ve provided the full price-per-ounce data in the “Contenders” section. We think it’ll be illuminating. Some of the “cheapest” tenders on a cost-per-order basis turned out to be the poorest value when we considered total weight.
Overall Winner
Wingstop
Wingstop, best known for sauce-glazed wings, only entered the tender game last year. That may explain why the cashier at the first Wingstop we visited wasn’t sure she could sell us the tenders plain (by default, your bird comes tossed in one of 12 sauces or rubs).
Wingstop’s tenders are hefty, with a relatively thin but crisp breading and a high chicken-to-breading ratio. While we liked the breading on Chick-Fil-A’s tenders slightly more, Wingstop took the crown for chicken quality, which Liz called “the apotheosis of white meat” between bites. The whole-muscle chicken was plump, juicy, and easy to pull apart into moist-but-tender strands.
The sauced options were tempting, but even the plain tender was well seasoned and fried to order in blessedly fresh-tasting oil.
Runners-Up
Chick-Fil-A
There are reasons to avoid Chick-Fil-A. The chicken is not one of them.
The Georgia-based chain behind the most famous chicken sandwich in fast food has equally impressive tenders, with the same juicy, MSG-laced charm.
Our order of Chick-n-Strips came out steaming—looking and tasting fresh from the fryer. The skinny tenders, made from actual chicken tenderloins, lived up to their name, with pull-apart-soft meat that tasted seasoned all the way through. The crust was thicker and shaggier than the breading on the sandwich or nuggets, giving them extra crunch.
Liz wanted more from the spice blend, which was mild, peppery, and gently sweet, but we agreed on the texture: No other chain balanced tender and crisp as well.
Krispy Krunchy Chicken
For some of the best fast-food chicken tenders, think beyond the drive-through. Even if you’ve never heard of Krispy Krunchy Chicken, odds are, there’s one in a gas station near you. The company has 3,600 locations in 48 states, and most operate inside convenience or liquor stores.
Despite that constraint, all Krispy Krunchy Chicken is hand-breaded in the store. It’s also ostensibly brined in a “Cajun marinade,” though neither of us tasted much Cajun influence. These tenders just tasted well-salted and pleasantly peppery, with a slight bitterness in the spice blend.
The tenders were also some of the largest, averaging more than 3 ounces per tender in our order. That size may be a slight drawback—Jed noted that the chicken seemed to be slightly overbrined, a flaw that would have been less obvious in a tender with a more even breading-to-chicken ratio. But the breading was craggy and golden brown, and the chicken was almost literally dripping with juices, making this a top pick.
The Competition
While Zaxby’s and KFC didn’t make our top tier, we appreciated their more generous approach to seasoning. And we were pleasantly surprised by the tempura-style chicken planks at Long John Silver’s, which had a slightly “gummy” bite but tasted fresh and well-seasoned.
We went in with high hopes for Popeye’s, whose chicken sandwich has been the subject of many a paean in food writing. But it earned one of our lowest composite scores thanks to pale, bland breading—and so much of it!—and the stale flavor of old fryer oil. We were also underwhelmed by cult-favorite Raising Cane’s, which had juicy chicken but a soggy, underseasoned coating that sloughed off as we ate.
Tenders from Sonic, McDonald’s, and Culver’s earned the same tasting note: “school cafeteria.” While we didn’t hate the “cafeteria chicken patty” breading at Culver’s, it didn’t have enough nostalgic appeal to nudge the chain into our top 5.
Full rankings, scores, and cost-per-ounce below:
WingStop
- Composite Score: 18.25
- Cost per ounce: $0.76
Chick-Fil-A
- Composite Score: 16.75
- Cost per ounce: $1.06
Krispy Krunchy Chicken
- Composite Score: 16.25
- Cost per ounce: $0.69
Zaxby’s
- Composite Score: 15.5
- Cost per ounce: $1.28
KFC
- Composite Score: 13.75
- Cost per ounce: $1.35
Long John Silver’s
- Composite Score: 12.5
- Cost per ounce: $1.65
Culver’s
- Composite Score: 12.25
- Cost per ounce: $1.19
Dairy Queen
- Composite Score: 11.25
- Cost per ounce: $0.93
Raising Cane’s
- Composite Score: 10.75
- Cost per ounce: $1.00
McDonald’s
- Composite Score: 10
- Cost per ounce: $0.84
Arby’s
- Composite Score: 9
- Cost per ounce: $0.66
Sonic
- Composite Score: 9
- Cost per ounce: $0.82
Wendy’s
- Composite Score: 8.75
- Cost per ounce: $1.12
Popeye’s
- Composite Score: 7.5
- Cost per ounce: $1.12
Church’s Texas Chicken
- Composite Score: 5.5
- Cost per ounce: $0.89
Read the original article on Serious Eats
