Chicken Nugget vs. Tender vs. Finger vs. Wing

I’ve never been one to get too upset about the “boneless wings” name. Chicken doesn’t strike me as an institution requiring a whole lot of linguistic integrity, and while I’d be comfortable ordering “nuggets” or “tenders” at Buffalo Wild Wings, there are elements of that which make me feel like a little kid, just as there are elements of ordering “boneless wings” that make me feel like a little kid. Either way, I’m ordering them, and depending on the company I may be feeling like a little kid, which is a long way of saying I don’t care what people call their chicken shapes. But I did get curious last night about what the technical definitions were of various forms of chicken. So I looked them up. All definitions are from Wikipedia/Google, with the exception of the boneless chicken wing definition, which is from meatpoultry.com.

Here’s what we’ve got:

Chicken Nugget: Small piece of deboned chicken meat, breaded or battered then deep-fried or baked.

Chicken Tender: From the pectoralis minor muscle, which is on the other side of the breastbone from the breast meat.

Chicken Finger: Same thing as a chicken tender.

Chicken Wing: The wing of the chicken.

Boneless Wing: Often breast meat. Nugget spinoff.

So yes, boneless wings are technically nuggets, and it sounds like you don’t know (unless they tell you) what part of the chicken the nugget was made from?

Good stuff.

Still not moved.