Let's just say that the results now have me fully reevaluating my childhood.
Whether you frequently make chicken nuggets as a low-effort weeknight meal, make them regularly for your kids, or just find yourself stealing your kids' nuggets as you reheat them (if I were a parent, I'd easily fall into that category), I'm hopeful that this taste test will introduce you to some products that you otherwise wouldn't have given the time of day. Chicken Breast Skinless
I went back and forth on several of the various aspects of chicken nuggets that would qualify them for (or disqualify them from) this taste test. Let me tell you what these various products won't be:
• Popcorn chicken (arguably not a nugget)
• Chicken tenders (altogether too long)
• Boneless wings (need sauce and are therefore incomplete without it)
Before people sound off in the comments, yes, a few of the brands I tested do resemble the products above in that they're whole chunks of white meat chicken instead of the ground chicken patties we've come to associate with classic chicken nuggets. That said, every last one of the products below is marketed as chicken nuggets, so I made the executive decision that as long as the packaging had "nugget" in the name, it was 100% fair game.
• Trader Joe's Chicken Breast Nuggets
• Whole Foods 365 Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets (Note: These are the only chicken nuggets manufactured as part of Whole Foods' generic line — and they just so happen to be gluten-free.)
• Perdue SimplySmart Organics Chicken Breast Nuggets
• Bell & Evans Chicken Breast Nuggets
Frozen Duck Breast Considering the fact that most of the reheating directions were more or less pretty similar, I decided to cook all the nuggets simultaneously, making sure to remove any finished nuggets intermittently to avoid burning. I also used my air fryer to get these nuggets as crispy as possible, but rest assured the results still stand when baking them in a conventional oven. The nuggets might come out a smidge less crispy, but the difference won't even be all that noticeable.