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Chicken fingers (also known as chicken goujons, chicken strips, chicken tenders, chicken nuggets or chicken fillets) are
chicken meat
Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world. Owing to the relative ease and low cost of raising chickens—in comparison to mammals such as cattle or hogs—chicken meat (commonly called just "chicken") and chicken eggs have becom ...
prepared from the
pectoralis minor muscle
Pectoralis minor muscle () is a thin, triangular muscle, situated at the upper part of the chest, beneath the pectoralis major in the human body.
Structure
Attachments
Pectoralis minor muscle arises from the upper margins and outer surfaces ...
s of the animal. These strips of white meat are located on either side of the breastbone, under the
breast meat
Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...
(pectoralis major). They may also be made with similarly shaped pieces cut from chicken meat, usually the breast, or sometimes just pulverized chicken flesh.
Chicken fingers are prepared by coating chicken meat in a
breading
Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled bread of various dryness, sometimes with seasonings added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thickenin ...
mixture and then
deep frying
Deep frying (also referred to as deep fat frying) is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, traditionally lard but today most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow oil used in conventional frying done in a frying pan. Norm ...
them, in a manner similar to the preparation of
schnitzel
A schnitzel is a thin slice of meat. The meat is usually thinned by pounding with a meat tenderizer. Most commonly, the meat is breaded before frying. Breaded schnitzel is popular in many countries and is made using veal, pork, chicken, mutt ...
. They are a very popular snack or main course due to their convenience and have become a staple across the United States. Chicken fingers are a popular fast-food snack in the U.S. Some of the most popular fast-food restaurants that sell chicken fingers include
Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers is an American fast-food restaurant chain specializing in chicken fingers founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by Todd Graves and Craig Silvey in 1996.
History
Founders Todd Graves and Craig Silvey were both enrolled ...
,
Chick-Fil-A
Chick-fil-A ( , a Word play, play on the American English pronunciation of "wikt:filet#Pronunciation, filet") is an American fast food restaurant chain which is the country's largest which specializes in chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in Coll ...
,
Church's Chicken
Church's Texas Chicken is an American fast food restaurant chain that specializes in fried chicken and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The chain was founded as Church's Fried Chicken To-Go by George W. Church Sr. on April 17, 1952, in San ...
,
KFC
KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, with 2 ...
,
Popeyes
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., also known as Popeyes and formerly named Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken & Biscuits, is an American multinational chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants that was formed in 1972 ...
,
Zaxby's
Zaxby's is an American chain of fast casual restaurants offering chicken wings, chicken fingers, sandwiches, and salads. The chain operates primarily in the Southern United States and has more than 900 locations. Most Zaxby's restaurants are owne ...
&
Culver's
Culver Franchising System, LLC (Culver's) is an American fast-casual restaurant chain. The company was founded in 1984 by George, Ruth, Craig, and Lea Culver. The first location opened in Sauk City, Wisconsin on July 18, 1984 under the name "Cul ...
.
![AmericanChinese Chickenfingers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/AmericanChinese_Chickenfingers.jpg)
Chicken tenders were first made in
Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644.
Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Hamp ...
at the
Puritan Backroom The Puritan Backroom is a 2020 James Beard Foundation Award America's Classic restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. They are known for their mudslides and chicken tenders, which they invented in 1974.
History
Arthur Pappas and Louis Canotas, G ...
in 1974. Restaurants in
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...
, and
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counties i ...
have challenged this claim with later assertions to the invention of chicken tenders, although the general consensus supports the claim in Manchester.
Mass production
Chicken fingers are a
mass-produced
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
product in the United States of America.
They gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1980s as an alternative
fast food
Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...
choice to
chicken nugget
A chicken nugget is a food product consisting of a small piece of deboned chicken meat that is breaded or battered, then deep-fried or baked. Invented in the 1950s, chicken nuggets have become a very popular fast food restaurant item, as we ...
s, since they retained more chicken meat. Production can involve coating chicken meat with spices,
polyphosphate
Polyphosphates are salts or esters of polymeric oxyanions formed from tetrahedral PO4 (phosphate) structural units linked together by sharing oxygen atoms. Polyphosphates can adopt linear or a cyclic ring structures. In biology, the polyphosphate e ...
and breading or crumbs, flash-frying the product to hold the breading in place, and then freezing it
prior to shipment for consumer, retail and commercial use.
Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, based in Springdale, Arkansas, that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annually ...
is one such company that mass-produces chicken fingers.
Some are manufactured with a specific flavor profile, such as with a Buffalo-style hot sauce flavor.
They are also manufactured with flavors such as Honey BBQ and Parmesan Herb Encrusted.
Vegan chicken fingers
In recent years, chicken fingers made without chicken and with
plant-based ingredients have entered the market and are called vegan chicken fingers or vegan chicken nuggets. They are made from ingredients that include pea protein, soy protein, textured vegetable protein and wheat gluten.
Variants
Chicken fingers are sometimes grilled rather than fried; they may accompany salads or pasta.
See also
*
Chicken and chips
Chicken and chips is a combination of foods predominantly consumed in the United Kingdom, The Commonwealth, and United States. It consists of a piece of fried, roasted, or barbecued chicken and chips, or French fries as they are known elsewhere. ...
*
Chicken nugget
A chicken nugget is a food product consisting of a small piece of deboned chicken meat that is breaded or battered, then deep-fried or baked. Invented in the 1950s, chicken nuggets have become a very popular fast food restaurant item, as we ...
s
*
Fish fingers
Fish fingers (British English) or fish sticks (American English) are a processed food made using a whitefish, such as cod, hake, haddock, shark or pollock, which has been battered or breaded. They are commonly available in the frozen food ...
*
List of hors d'oeuvre
This is a list of notable hors d'oeuvre, also referred to as appetisers or starters, which may be served either hot or cold. They are food items served before the main courses of a meal, and are also sometimes served at the dinner table as a part ...
*
*
Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers is an American fast-food restaurant chain specializing in chicken fingers founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by Todd Graves and Craig Silvey in 1996.
History
Founders Todd Graves and Craig Silvey were both enrolled ...
*
Chicken as food
Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world. Owing to the relative ease and low cost of raising chickens—in comparison to mammals such as cattle or hogs—chicken meat (commonly called just "chicken") and chicken eggs have beco ...
References
Works cited
*
* “Fooddata Central Search Results.” ''FoodData Central'',
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/2108385/nutrients.
* “Crispy Chicken Strips.” ''Tyson® Brand'',
https://www.tyson.com/products/breaded-chicken-crispy-chicken-strips/.
* Jawad, Yumna Jawad, et al. “Grilled Chicken Tenders.” ''FeelGoodFoodie'', 12 June 2021,
https://feelgoodfoodie.net/recipe/grilled-chicken-tenders/.
External links
*
{{Authority control
American chicken dishes
Appetizers
Convenience foods
Fast food
Deep fried foods
Fried chicken