In the great debate over which is superior — the nugget or the tender — I’m fully team tender. Nuggets are a gamble. Sometimes they’re heavily processed, sometimes they’re not even pure chicken, but with a tender you get a single cut of meat that has simply been battered and fried, even marinated if you’re lucky! But, who in fast food is making the best tasting highest quality chicken tender?
Come on, you know where we’re going with this… It’s time to blind taste test chicken tenders!
I’ve been a chicken tender fan for a long time, at one point in my life my diet consisted almost entirely of pancakes and chicken tenders. Yes, I was a picky child, but still, my love for chicken tenders (and pancakes) has never died, and I’ve had a lot of them throughout my life so my standards for what makes a great chicken tender are sky-high:
- It has to be crunchy.
- It has to be tender — I mean, it’s in the name.
- It has to be battered in something that makes it perfectly flavorful, no sauce required.
So that’s how I’m going to taste them, sauceless. Let’s do it.
Methodology
Putting this taste test together was relatively easy compared to when we blind taste-tested chocolate milkshakes and cheeseburgers. All five of the restaurants chosen for this taste test were in relatively close proximity to each other and close enough to my home that I was able to grab the food and actually eat it at home instead of in a random parking lot like I’ve been doing for the last couple of taste tests.
Here is our tasting class:
- Carl’s Jr
- Chick-fil-A
- KFC
- Popeyes
- Raising Canes
Once I had each tender, I had my girlfriend bring me one tender at a time chosen at random and I ate the entire thing to get the full experience. Since chicken tenders can be very inconsistent in size and shape, I had her choose the best tender per order. Thankfully, none of them needed sauce to be edible, but unfortunately that made ranking them a bit tougher than I had imagined. Let’s dive into the tasting notes.
Part 1: The Chicken Tender Taste Test
Taste 1
Juicy and crunchy, a great start. This tender has a mix of black pepper, garlic powder, and salty flavors, and an aftertaste that is buttery with a gentle hint of lemon. Overall it’s a bright and light experience, I can see how sauce would easily elevate this to being even more delicious, but as it stands alone, it’s delicious!
Taste 2
Great breading here, it’s audibly crunchy. The chicken is a bit dry, but the flavor is nice with an emphasis on earthy black pepper notes with a sort of sweet aftertaste.
Taste 3
Dusty tasting and a bit bland. There is a staleness to the breading here, it tastes a bit burnt and the chicken inside is incredibly dry. I’m getting a lot of crunch out of this one, but eating it isn’t an enjoyable experience.
My hunch is that this one is going to rank last.
Taste 4
Incredibly juicy. This chicken is so tender that it almost melts in the mouth. The breading isn’t very crunchy, but it’s full of flavor, rich pepper notes, a hint of sweetness, and a slightly floral aftertaste. Very interesting. Sadly, I think it comes across as a bit wet and soggy. The breading sort of falls apart and sticks to my fingers — kind of off-putting.
Taste 5
Strangely flat, this piece of chicken is more breading than meat. It’s the crunchiest of the five we’ve tasted, and while the meat is scarce, all together the flavor is delicious. It’s bright, spicy, and salty. But I can’t get over just how little meat there is here. I’d say the ratio of breading to meat is 3:1.
Part 2: The Chicken Tender Ranking
5. Carl’s Jr — Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders (Taste 3)
Carl’s Jr’s Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders at one time, were novel. The idea of a hand-breaded piece of chicken was a rarity when the norm was fast food restaurants selling frozen pre-prepared chicken tenders with processed meat. Thankfully, we’re not living in those dark days anymore, but unfortunately for Carl’s Jr, that makes its hand-breaded tenders nothing special.
Ironically, this chicken sort of tastes like no love or care was put into crafting it, the breading isn’t seasoned well and it’s over-fried to the point of being dry, for that it stood apart as easily the least enjoyable piece of chicken we ate today.
The Bottom Line:
Carl’s Jr’s Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders feel a little outdated and underwhelming in comparison to the chains that specialize in chicken.
Find your nearest Carl’s Jr. here.
4. KFC — Chicken Tenders (Taste 3)
KFC makes some great-tasting bird — there is a distinct character and flavor in this chicken tender that tastes undeniably like KFC. Part of me knew this was KFC during the blind tasting portion, but unfortunately, since the chicken was a bit too dry, I can’t rank it higher than the second to last place spot.
Earlier I mentioned that none of the chicken tenders needed sauce to get through, but I’m not confident I could say that about this chicken if I had more than a single tender.
The Bottom Line:
Good flavor, but a bit too dry.
Find your nearest KFC here.
3. Popeyes — Spicy Chicken Tender (Taste 5)
I love Popeyes, great bone-in chicken, and great chicken sandwiches, but straight up the tenders and nuggets need work. The flavor is on point, it’s bright, buttery, smokey, and spicy, and has a superior crunch to anything else on the market, but there just isn’t enough actual chicken here to make it rank any higher than mid-tier.
It’s literally a flat strip of meat. I’m not even sure this qualifies as a chicken tender, it’s almost as if someone shaved off a layer from a chicken filet, breaded up to three times its size, fried it, and called it a day.
The Bottom Line:
Great flavor, but where is the actual chicken? In a fast food world where chicken is king, it feels like Popeyes needs to step up its game.
Find your nearest Popeyes here.
2. Chick-fil-A — Chicken Tenders (Taste 4)
I have to hand it to Chick-fil-A, marinating your chicken in pickle brine, breading it on-site, and frying it in peanut oil is a good way to make some great f*cking chicken. Unfortunately, as good as these tenders are, they’re Chick-fil-A’s worst chicken option. Why would you ever order these over the nuggets, which are juicier, or the chicken sandwich, which is meatier?
Having said all that, we’re not here to talk about the rest of the Chick-fil-A menu, we’re here to compare it to the chicken tenders we ate in this sitting. This was so close to taking the number one spot, the only thing that kept it from taking the crown was that it wasn’t crispy enough. The breading, as delicious as it is, came across as a bit wet and soggy.
The Bottom Line:
Great flavor, it’s tender and juicy, but not crunchy enough.
Find your nearest Chick-fil-A here.
1. Raising Cane’s — Chicken Tenders (Taste 1)
Raising Cane’s straight up doesn’t have a batter as delicious as Chick-fil-A, and they don’t marinate their chicken in pickle brine (I believe they use lemon water) resulting in a brighter and less intense flavor than Chick-fi-A, but the whole package is just on point here.
The batter is perfect, it’s thick, craggy, and well seasoned, the chicken is tender and juicy (made from non-frozen chicken tenders prepared in-house), and each piece is fried for the perfect amount of time, resulting in a chicken tender that is equal parts crunchy and flavorful. This chicken doesn’t leave me wanting for anything, and for that, it’s our number one choice.
The Bottom Line:
The perfect fast food chicken tender and the standard by which all other chicken tenders should be measured.
Find your nearest Raising Cane’s here.