Fast Food Nuggets That Aren't 100% Pure Chicken

By and large, the clear craze of the early 1990s – when clear-colored or supposedly pure products were all the rage – is little more than a bygone fad from the halcyon pre-internet days of the late 20th century. But the notion of food purity as a positive nutritional trait hasn't diminished. In fact, the push to consume whole, unprocessed, so-called pure foods has only grown since then, causing many modern consumers to scrutinize any and all menu items for impurities — including fast food chicken nuggets.

Chicken nuggets have been an American tradition since Robert Baker first created the food in a Cornell University lab in 1963. This mass-produced product is often made with other ingredients blended into the chicken during the manufacturing process. Frankly, even if you're consuming a fast food nugget or tender that tastes like pure poultry, well ... there's a reason the go-to shorthand for mystery meat is often "it tastes like chicken."

We're sure some fast food nuggets and tenders consist of unadulterated chicken meat, but we're not interested in those examples for this article. So stick with us until the end as we reveal fast food nuggets that aren't 100% pure chicken.

When we researched this article, we strove to use ingredient lists offered straight from the horse's mouth whenever possible. And while many fast food chains do provide an unfettered account of what's in their chicken nuggets or tenders, other restaurants are less forthcoming (for seemingly obvious reasons). This includes Carl's Jr., which doesn't appear willing to share the makeup of its nugget-like chicken stars with the world — perhaps because it would reveal a plethora of non-chicken ingredients to consumers.

From what we were able to find, Carl's Jr.'s chicken nuggets — err, chicken stars — are loaded with additional ingredients. In fact, the simple act of biting into one of the chain's chicken stars reveals a highly processed, alien-looking interior texture — it doesn't look remotely like regular chicken.

A rundown of the likely non-chicken items used to make this product further solidifies its impurity to customers. In particular, the baffling inclusion of beef flavor (followed by the laughably vague "flavor") makes us wonder whether any actual chicken is used in the production of Carl's Jr.'s chicken stars. It appears that some percentage of the "meat" in these stars is actually hydrolyzed soy protein as well.

If you're aware that canned ham labels often note a percentage of water is held inside (in addition to the ham itself), you likely know this isn't designed to trick customers into paying for a partially liquified piece of pork. Rather, it's simply alerting consumers to the presence of a water solution that helps ensure the ham remains moist after it's prepared. We have a feeling some fast food chicken nuggets and tenders aren't 100% pure chicken for a similar reason — like Whataburger's chicken strips, which include as much as 12% non-chicken ingredients.

We don't have any proof, per se, to back up our hunch regarding the specific reason why additional ingredients are added to Whataburger's chicken strips. But it seems reasonable to assume that the product includes a solution of water, isolated soy proteins, salt, and sodium phosphates so that the chicken remains moist and flavorful after it's cooked and served.

Obviously, we're not here to provide any nuanced defenses for fast food nuggets and tenders (or strips) that aren't 100% pure chicken. So while we may understand the logic behind the extended ingredient list of Whataburger's chicken strips, we're still obliged to mention their not-quite-pure status in this article.

When Dairy Queen announced plans to discontinue the cherry dipped cone in May 2023, many fans were left devastated by the decision. After all, if there's no cherry dipped cone incentivizing consumers to take a trip to President Joe Biden's favorite fast food spot, what's going to draw them in? It certainly isn't Dairy Queen's chicken strips — a fast food nugget-like product that's purportedly prepared with exclusively white meat, but contains additional ingredients beyond chicken.

Dairy Queen's chicken strips are made with a solution of water, hydrolyzed soy protein, salt, and sodium phosphates — a mixture likely added to help improve their texture and retain moisture. The solution may comprise as much as 18% of the total mass of the chicken meat. In fact, since the remaining ingredients appear to be related exclusively to the item's breading, it seems the water solution is the only additional ingredient in the poultry portion of DQ's chicken strips.

Although the seasoning solution may count as minimally processed by the standards of this list, it's impossible to declare that this menu item is 100% pure chicken. In addition to the water solution, the list of breading ingredients is so long that it reads like an essay.

There may be no more famous or popular version of chicken nuggets than the corporate-branded McNuggets sold by the world's best-selling fast food chain. We can't imagine any readers are unfamiliar with the consistently shaped deep-fried nugget pieces sold by McDonald's (whether or not they're apt to inhale a 10-piece box when the mood strikes). Yet the ubiquity of McNuggets leads us to our larger point — namely, that the composition of these fast food nuggets is far from pure chicken.

McDonald's claims to use chicken breast meat exclusively for the meat portion of its McNuggets, and that does, indeed, appear true. But the restaurant doesn't simply take a chicken breast and slice it up into chunks to batter and fry. Rather, it grinds and blends the breast meat into a gross-looking goop that's then used to create one of its four signature nugget shapes – hence the tremendously unnatural texture you're sure to notice when glancing at a McNugget's interior.

More disturbing than the behind-the-scenes details of how McNuggets are manufactured, though, is the fact the company's ingredient list plainly states the product contains a mere 45% chicken meat. In other words, while we've never been fooled into believing McDonald's chicken nuggets are 100% pure chicken, the fact they're less than half chicken in total means we may never eat another one again.

Of all the fast food nuggets and tenders we learned are made with less-than-100% chicken, we were most shocked to discover what was contained in the chicken tenders from Culver's. The chain touts the wholesome, all-natural environment in which it raises the chickens slaughtered for its tenders, after all. But Culver's public commitment to avoiding additional animal byproducts in its tenders doesn't mean it's committed to avoiding using any other ingredients in the preparation of its chicken tenders.

With ingredients such as modified tapioca starch, salt, and sodium tripolyphosphate, it's clear Culver's chicken tenders aren't made solely with chicken. However, since a large number of listed ingredients appear to be used for seasoning — including spices and flavor enhancers like onion powder, garlic powder, and autolyzed yeast extract — the high ingredient count may simply be a means to maximize flavor.

Considering the bland, borderline-agonizing experience of eating plain, unseasoned chicken, perhaps the additional ingredients simply make this fast food restaurant's tenders a toothsome delight. So while there may be more than just chicken in your Culver's chicken tenders order, when you ponder the alternative, it's not the worst problem to encounter.

Cheap food made fast and consistently has been White Castle's bread and butter since it originally opened — meaning we wouldn't expect the fast food chain to sell unadulterated chicken nuggets to consumers. Unsurprisingly, then, White Castle's chicken nugget-type menu item — which is shaped like rings for some reason — appears to be precisely what we expected, as a review of the ingredients shows it's hardly pure chicken.

At first glance, there doesn't appear to be anything all that unusual about White Castle chicken rings' composition — at least when compared to other less-than-100% pure fast food nuggets. But one specific item stood out like a sore thumb: "powdered cooked chicken." Quite frankly, we're utterly baffled at how White Castle's chicken rings could be improved by the addition of a dried, pulverized chicken product.

Then again, we're not interested in analyzing the underlying rationale for why certain non-chicken ingredients are added to fast food nuggets (though we suppose powdered cooked chicken is technically chicken). So we'll simply point out the absurdity of such an ingredient — and note the numerous other ingredients that steer White Castle's chicken rings away from poultry purity, as well, including carrageenan, preservatives, and flavor enhancers.