Fast food takedown: best chicken tenders

When ordering at a fast food restaurant, some people don’t think about items on the menu in terms of cost, quality and value. As a college student, instead of going with whatever’s most convenient or a craving, take some time to try out different kinds of chicken tenders and determine which ones you think best suit your preferences and budget.
With all the options available, myself and two others decided to travel to five fast food chains that sell chicken tenders. We ranked them based on edibility without dip, believability of being real chicken and other aspects, such as texture and breading. We also compared the price of the chicken to the quality of the chicken and its packaging when determining its ranking.
In terms of price including tax, McDonald’s two-piece chicken tenders are $2.16, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s three-piece with a biscuit is $5.07, a Wendy’s three-piece is $3.99, a Burger King two-piece is $2.80 and Dunkin’ Donuts two-piece waffle breaded chicken tenders are $2.16.
With just these numbers in mind, one can suspect that KFC’s chicken tenders will be the best, since they are the most expensive, and that McDonald’s and Dunkin’ would have the lowest quality, since they’re the cheapest. However, in terms of quantity, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ are sold only as two, they both had the best ratio when comparing price to amount, being $1.08 per tender.
At our first stop, Wendy’s, the chicken had peppery breading, a soft, but dry texture and appeared to be real white meat chicken. After evaluating all these aspects, their tenders seemed to be edible without dip.
The second stop, KFC, started out unimpressive, with the total being over $5 for only three chicken strips, making the price of each strip over a dollar. However, we discovered during the taste test that a biscuit was included, making up for the excess in price. The breading also had a balanced amount of crunch and spice variety. It appeared to be white meat and had a juicy aspect to it that added to the experience. As a whole, we felt it could be eaten without dip and still taste good.
On our third stop, McDonald’s, we were given three chicken tenders instead of the expected two, but they were all tiny and had a dark, burnt look to the breading. Upon biting into them, we found there was a hard, chewy texture to them and almost no chicken on the inside. It primarily consisted of breading with a combination of spices that we felt couldn’t stand on its own. We had to use McDonald’s sweet and sour sauce halfway through to finish the tenders and wouldn’t eat them again without some sort of dip.
Burger King, which recently started selling chicken tenders, elicited a similar reaction to McDonald’s. Their tenders were thinner and longer than the others we’d previously seen, and they also lacked chicken underneath all the breading. The breading itself was dry and bland, overall lacking in taste. We felt sauce would’ve helped improve its taste and also needed a drink after consuming them.
Our final stop was to Dunkin’, which recently started selling chicken tenders as a part of their “Dunkin’ Run.” We were immediately turned off by the packaging. Unlike its earlier competitors, these tenders were stuffed in a paper bag you could see grease seeping through. Since these tenders were waffle breaded with a maple taste, we felt there was nothing they could be dipped into that would complement it. The breading appeared artificial, but the chicken had tendons inside, indicating that much was at least real. While we didn’t dislike them, we just didn’t think they were good enough to get again.
After trying all five options, we decided that KFC ranked as the best chicken tenders in terms of quality and edibility. Although it wound up being more expensive than the quicker and cheaper options, we felt it was worth it.
Wendy’s came in second, as the only other one that we thought was good enough to stand alone without needing a dip to add more flavor. It was also one of the more expensive options, each tender was worth about $1.33, making it still worth it for the quality.
McDonald’s and Burger King were third and fourth, with Dunkin’ coming in last.
Having previously gotten our chicken tenders primarily from McDonald’s and Wendy’s, this experiment forced us to re-evaluate the quality of the chicken tenders we’d been consuming, while also paying more attention to the price of these items. In the future, the longer drive to Wendy’s, and maybe even splurging for KFC, would be worth it for the better quality and taste of their chicken tenders.