Chicken Selects from McDonald’s
Like many people, I liked Chicken McNuggets as a kid, but eventually developed a taste for a better piece of chicken. McDonald’s realizes this of course, and their menu includes chicken ’strips’ for people like us. They even use the words “Select” and “Premium” in the product name, to indicate superiority over their little nugget brothers. But are they really better? The short answer is yes, but there’s more to the story.
From the thick crunchy coating and seasoning outside, to the chicken breast meat inside, it’s obvious these are not the same old nuggets. The strips are big. When first opening the box they looked like one large piece of chicken. They are crispy on the outside, with a breading that reminds me of shake-n-bake fried chicken. It’s nothing like the smooth breading on the McNuggets. It’s rough and bumpy, and crumbs fall off when you bite into it. You can see large specs of black pepper dotting the crust.
The meat inside is nice and tender, though it’s a bit dry. The strips appear to be cut from real breast meat. I detected some stringy rib meat too, but that’s not unusual since rib-meat is attached to the breast area. Despite the claims of many companies who say they use 100% breast filet, the fact is lots of those products include the rib-meat. That’s a technicality, and I suppose it’s why so many restaurants can say it.
I ate my first strip plain, to appreciate the taste on it’s own, and then I used sauce for dipping the rest. They tasted pretty good overall, but there’s not as much flavor as I would like. I wouldn’t call them outright bland, but they took the conservative approach when seasoning the meat. The Barbecue sauce helped, but it usually does. Aside from my own opinion, I know these must be decent chicken strips because after my buddy took his first bite, he quickly ate all 3 of his strips without pausing to use either of the two different types of sauces. That’s always a positive sign when eating with him, because this guy puts Barbecue or Sweet-N-Sour sauce on everything.
I’m going to review a lot of chicken strips (and nuggets) over the coming weeks and months, so these strips from McDonald’s will serve as a measuring stick for those others. I am a Chick-Fil-A man myself, but I think McDonald’s has a solid product here, and I look forward to seeing how the competition stacks up.
Chicken Selects Premium Chicken Strips from McDonald’s are good, but not great. They are crisper than I expected, and bigger too. They have a decent flavor but the scale does tip towards the bland side. A little Barbecue sauce improved the overall experience, but that’s certainly not going to help the score. They would have probably rated higher if they had a bit more flavor, or a bit less dryness.
Fast Food Critic Score:
4 out of 5 stars.
Nutrition Facts - McDonald’s Chicken Selects Premium Strips, 3 piece.
Calories - 400
Calories from Fat - 210
Total Fat - 23 grams
Carbs - 25 grams
Saturated Fat - 4 grams
Trans Fat - 2 grams
Cholesterol - 50 milligrams
Sodium - 1000 milligrams
Pretty accurate review here. I am a sauce man myself and the strips are adequate for getting a good chicken strip & BBQ sauce experience. Their Chipotle BBQ sauce for the Chicken Selects is quite good, and very different than the BBQ sauce given with the nuggets. (Which btw, seem to taste better in recent years. Did they improve them?)
While I agree with most of your comments pertaining to the Selects, I cannot abide the general disdain you hold for McNuggets.
You deride them as childish, yet is it not our childhood memories that draw us to the golden arches in the first place? Almost every time McDonalds attempts “grownup” products (Arch Deluxe anyone?) they are met with lukewarm applause.
I find the simplicity and uniqueness of the McNugget to be consistently satisfying, as they have retained their spot in the upper echelons of fast food’s greatest items (at least in my quarter century on this earth).
While Wendys, Arbys and others produce similarly breaded tenders, no one else can lay claim to the greatness that is the McNugget (which is battered not breaded mind you). These golden morsels have even entered into the arena occupied by a scant few products (Coke, Kleenex, Xerox, Band-Aid) where the brand name has taken precedence over the entire category.
I’m looking forward to your review of the classic McNugget, but fear these stalwarts of the fast food industry will not receive the honors they have earned since their inception so many years ago.
[…] was fun, but when I’m eating at McDonald’s the higher quality, better tasting and more natural Chicken Selects will be my […]