9. Chick-fil-A Chick-n-Strips
What we paid: $12.09 for four strips
I’m still perplexed by the popularity of Chick-fil-A, and even more so after trying their strips. Last year, the brand reported nearly $22 billion in sales. Every time I pass a location the line extends beyond the driveway and into the street. It is the only thing my friend’s kids will eat with enthusiasm. Maybe it’s because the tenders taste like they’ve been dipped in sugar. So much so that Hallock commented mid-bite: “Why am I eating a cookie?” Both sugar and sugar syrup are listed in the ingredients. The chicken was moist with no oily aftertaste, but we couldn’t get over the sweetness of the tenders. The Chick-fil-A sauce, thick and gloppy and even sweeter, only made things worse.
8. Chicken Guy! fried tenders
What we paid: $12.42 for five tenders
Chicken Guy! is the new chicken tender and fries restaurant from Guy Fieri, the spiky-haired host behind most of the shows on the Food Network. Fieri’s tenders are wide and flat, resembling pounded and breaded chicken cutlets. There was a nice amount of seasoning and what tasted like a panko-crust coating that stayed impressively crunchy, but they also registered as too sweet, and the chicken was tough.
7. Jollibee chicken tenders
What we paid: $21.24 for six tenders
I’ve had great fried chicken at Jollibee, the Filipino fast food chain known for its chicken, gravy and spaghetti. I had high hopes for the brand’s tenders, which were varied in shape and size, more like odd strips and blobs that were battered and fried. The coating wasn’t too heavy, but any seasoning or real flavor was masked by the overwhelming taste of fry oil. It bordered on rancid, but the chicken inside was tender and juicy.
6. Kentucky Fried Chicken chicken tenders
What we paid: $12.92 for four tenders
The tenders had the same shaggy coating and seasoning as the chain’s bone-in fried chicken, which meant that they were relatively crunchy and very salty. The chicken was tough, and you could pull away strips like string cheese. Both the KFC sauce and Comeback sauce were too sweet. Gravy is the better dipping option, though it’s a tad watery.