I was reading last week that Burger King is once again looking to change up the recipe for their chicken nuggets. This will make what I count as at least four changes to the menu item in the last 15-20 years. They keep looking for a better nugget, but the answer to their problem has been right under their noses since the mid-80s. The classic Burger King Chicken Tender.
Burger King rolled out their original chicken tenders in late 1985, and I was an immediate fan. Back in those days the main chicken dish in fast food was McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets. But the nuggets then weren’t exactly like the nuggets now. When you got a six-piece, three or four of them were dark meat, and just a couple were white meat. So as a kid, I would get them on occasion, but they weren’t my favorites. Then along came these tenders from BK that featured real white meat chicken in a breading that was loaded with pepper flakes. They were just so good and immediately became my go-to order when we’d stop at Burger King.
At that time, and still today actually, I was a big fan of their original chicken sandwich. These chicken tenders had a similar flavor but used actual sliced chicken meat instead of pressed meat. My dad became a fan as well, and when I would be traveling with him, he’d pull into a Burger King and order the largest pack they had. I can’t remember if that was a twenty-piece or a fifty-piece. I know it sounds crazy, but I remember it being a fifty-piece. Anyway, he’d put the box up on the dash in the sun where they would stay warm, and we would just take our time eating them until they were gone.
The packaging was great too, as the box they came in had a compartment to put the sauce cup in. While that doesn’t sound like a big deal, to an 8-year-old, any extra feature like that is a big deal. My mom used to use the chicken tenders as a “reward” at times to make me feel better. I say to feel better because, at that time, I was a carrier of strep throat, and had to go to the doctor and get a shot every two weeks. That sucks as a kid, but after the shot, we’d stop at Burger King and put up some of these tenders to take home and enjoy.
I don’t remember when this version of the tender went away, but I do remember in the late ’90s and/or early 2000s, they added a Chicken Tenders sandwich to the menu. It featured 3 chicken tenders on a bun with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. I’m pretty sure it was on the $1 menu or whatever their deal menu was at the time.
The nuggets that Burger King offers today taste nothing like these tenders of old did, but their chicken fries are actually pretty close. The first time I tried the chicken fries, it hit me pretty quickly how similar in taste they were. I’ll order the chicken fries once in a blue moon hoping to recapture that chicken tender magic, but it’s just not quite there. Maybe one day they’ll pull the trigger and bring them back again.
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