Do Chicken Nuggets Need a Taco Bell Twist?

Chicken nuggets hit Taco Bell stores on December 19. | Bettina Makalintal

The chain is coming for McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A, and the end result doesn’t feel totally Taco Bell

As anyone who frequents Taco Bell knows, most of its menu is just assemblages of the same few gloops. There is the bean gloop, the cheese gloop (a personal favorite), and of course, the beef gloop. These are the essential, constituent elements of most items on the Taco Bell menu, guaranteeing that if you like the Beefy 5-layer Burrito you’ll probably also like the Mexican Pizza.

The chain’s newest addition, however, is decidedly not gloop. It is chicken nuggets, which hit stores nationwide later this week (for now, on a limited basis). With a thick, craggy coating and breast meat, the end result exists more on the Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A end of the nugget spectrum than McDonald’s or Wendy’s. Other chains might even call it a “boneless wing.” A spiced breading, which includes crushed tortilla chips, and a jalapeño buttermilk marinade give it a “Taco Bell twist,” as a representative told me while I tried the nuggets during an early preview taste-test at a Taco Bell in New York City.

The verdict: I found the nuggets pleasantly juicy and crunchy, certainly a more premium feeling nugget than some of its reconstituted competitors. The spiced breading stood out — did I taste a whiff of Cool Ranch Dorito? — though the end result was a bit salty and borderline one-note. I realized why the slight sweetness in the marinade makes Chick-fil-A’s nuggets, by comparison, so popular. Here, the selection of new dipping sauces — a chile and tomato “Bell Sauce,” a jalapeño honey mustard, and a Hidden Valley Ranch collaboration featuring the chain’s stalwart Fire Sauce — felt essential as a result.

I don’t think these nuggets will unseat McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A in most people’s rankings, but I’m also not sure that’s the point of adding them to the menu. Rather, they seem to exist for Taco Bell fans who could use more variety especially in texture, or people who just need a good-enough chicken nugget — someone picking up burritos but also wanting to appease a dining partner who prefers crispy chicken, for example.

Taco Bell

Do the nuggets feel quintessentially Taco Bell? Not quite. But they’ll almost certainly do just fine. According to the Taco Bell representative, audiences — and Gen Z in particular — can’t get enough chicken. That generational interest echoes what Wendy’s and KFC have cited with their latest nugget offerings. Recent market research also shows that Gen Z prefers boneless chicken and tenders over the bone-in chicken of older generations.

And overall, interest in chicken is only growing among consumers in the United States. Fast-food chains are simply taking advantage of that demand. Indeed, the launch continues a goal that Taco Bell expressed earlier this year: going “all in” on chicken, as it announced with the addition of its “slow-roasted” Cantina Chicken in March.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that with high and rising prices for beef, chicken is sustaining fast-food restaurants, with the number of chicken products (which includes sandwiches, wings, nuggets, and strips) eaten at quick-service restaurants having increased 11 percent since 2019, according to one analyst. The growth of chicken on restaurant menus has outpaced beef options over the same time period, the Wall Street Journal reported early this year. In October, McDonald’s — which now sells as much chicken as it does beef — launched the Chicken Big Mac, and it’s promised the return of its chicken-centric Snack Wrap next year.

“There is a distinct guest that goes to places wanting chicken, and we want to be there for them and in their consideration when they’re looking for it,” Mike McGarry, Shake Shack’s vice president of brand marketing told the Post. (Shake Shack, like other beef-centric chains, has also welcomed chicken, offering a free chicken sandwich promotion in September.) To that end, what Taco Bell’s nuggets do is open up the possibilities of the potential Taco Bell consumer: Even people who don’t like beef gloop will have something to eat.

But perhaps the most promising potential of the nuggets is their ability to expand the chain’s cinematic universe. The best case scenario is that they become another option in the plug-and-chug matrix of the Taco Bell menu. I could see nuggets tossed in Fire Sauce in the future, or a value-menu chicken burrito. And imagine these nuggets inside a quesadilla or a Crunchwrap Supreme? Probably great! Especially after a long night.

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