In Search of a Better Chicken Tender

"I Love That Chicken." 

Every once in a while, I get a craving for some chicken from Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. I prefer the Handcrafted Tenders, because they are less messy than actual chicken pieces (lending themselves to perhaps be eaten in the car), and because they are very easily dip-able in one of Popeyes sauces. (I particularly like the Bayou Buffalo sauce, although some of the other sauce flavors are pretty good, too.)

(Some of my readers will not be surprised to hear that my favorite Popeyes chicken a few years ago wasn't the tenders, but the Chicken Po'Boy Sandwich. It was easy to eat with one hand, and the combination of french roll, mayonnaise, pickles, and lettuce was to die for. I've written an appendage blog about trying to recreate that.)

The closest Popeyes to me, here in Fort Myers, is just about a mile away. But I've had some terrible experiences there, including messed up orders, extremely long waits, and even one time where they had "misplaced" my online order, causing me to hold up a line trying to help them to recreate it (since I had already paid). and causing some of the people in that line to get downright nasty. (I posted one of the only 1-star reviews I've ever written after that miserable event.) That was the last time I went to the relatively close Popeyes. 

Fortunately, there is another Popeyes across the Caloosahatchee River, in Cape Coral. It's about four and a half miles away, and my experience there has been better (although it's clear that fast food restaurants are having a hard time hiring and keeping good workers). It's also close to the Lowe's that I often go to, and there's the added bonus of a great view of the river and the Fort Myers waterfront (such as it is) coming and going across the bridge.

A five-piece Handcrafted Chicken Tenders Combo at the Cape Coral Popeyes is currently $11.29 plus tax. It includes five tenders, a biscuit, a side (the Cajun fries are a winner!), and a medium drink (It doesn't appear possible from the online menu to order the tenders themselves without the combo.) It's more than enough food for a meal, and I often save two tenders for later, along with the side and the biscuit. (Why DOES Popeyes include a biscuit with their meal, anyway? The only time I really like having the biscuit is when I order the mashed potatoes side, since it's great for sopping up gravy. It's also pretty good as a snack heated up with a little honey.) A three-piece tenders combo is certainly a sufficient amount of food, but when I'm anticipating the amazing taste and mouth feel of a crunchy, moist, tasty piece of the best chicken on the planet, it's hard to keep myself to ordering just three. (Plus, a three-piece combo is $10.19; and who wouldn't want two additional chicken tenders for only $1.10 more?!)

(As an aside, it's not REALLY the best chicken on the planet, although it's pretty close, and here in Florida I haven't found a good source of really good fried chicken, the best of which comes from Harold's The Fried Chicken King in Chicago. 

 Without access to Harold's, Popeyes is about the best there is. [This article rates a bunch of available fast food chicken tenders and concludes that Popeyes is far and away the best. This somewhat older article rates Popeyes second best behind Raising Cane's, also from Louisiana, although I haven't had the pleasure of trying them.)

(You don't like fried chicken?! Don't @ me.)

$11.29 for a five-piece tender combo is not really all that expensive, although it has certainly gone up in the last couple of years. But when I paid for my most recent combo, I thought to myself: "I bet I could make a pretty decent chicken tender at home for a lot less money!" Certainly there is the option of cooking from scratch, with chicken tenderloins, a nice batter, and some good oil. But who really wants used frying oil to have to deal with? (I do plan to check out a couple of recipes, and will let you know how that turns out.) I know that in the supermarket, there are many different types of prepared chicken tenders available--most frozen, although some fresh ones are available. Much easier to take a few out of the freezer and heat them up in the toaster oven to satisfy a craving, right? 

A Taste Test Comparison

So I decided to do a little comparison: Popeyes tenders vs. a few of the available options at my local Publix supermarket. I didn't really expect the supermarket tenders to be better than Popeyes, or even close to equivalent. But maybe something is "good enough." (Given that the tenders are typically dipped in a flavorful sauce, maybe the quality of the tenders themselves isn't all that important?)

As I mentioned, there are a lot of options available. Many of them seem marketed at parents of hungry kids. (Dinosaur shapes? I know at least a few youngsters who won't eat anything BUT chicken strips!) Also, some of the brands seem to have multiple "flavors" available. Not surprisingly, Tyson has many different kinds of frozen chicken pieces (including their Any'tizer brand). I found an online article that suggested that the Tyson's Southern Style Breast Tenderloins was the best, so that was the first candidate I chose.

There were a number of Perdue branded options, but the one that caught my eye was the Chicken Breast Strips, which come fresh ("never frozen"). These aren't exactly tenderloins, and in fact really weren't comparable to the others, as you'll see below.

The other option that was the closest to what I was looking for ("tenderloins") was Publix's own Premium Whole Grain Breaded Chicken Tenderloins. To round out the comparison, of course I had to include Popeyes, which is what I was craving in any case.

So we had our contenders (for what might just be the first round of comparison):

• Popeyes Handcrafted Tenders, $11.29 for five pieces (purchased cooked, then refrigerated overnight and reheated in the oven)
  
• Tyson's Southern Style Breast Tenderloins, $12.89 for 25 oz, frozen, then cooked in the oven
  
• Publix Whole Grain Breaded, $12.49 for 24 oz, frozen, then cooked in the oven
  
• Perdue Chicken Breast Strips, $4.99 for 12 oz, fresh, then frozen overnight, then cooked in the oven

The Popeyes tenders were left over from a five-piece that I had purchased the day before. As always, the tenders just home from the store were incredibly good while fresh and hot. Refrigerating a couple overnight certainly hurt their overall appeal a bit (see below). 

The reason I froze the Perdue Strips is because I wanted a fair comparison with the other frozen options, and also because I know I wasn't going to eat all of them in the next few days. This might have been much better if I had cooked it from fresh (and for that reason I might have to include them in a future comparison).

One question that arose was how to account for the slightly different cooking directions. Both the Tyson's and the Publix called for a 425F oven for 18-20 minutes. Perdue wanted a 400F oven for 10-12 minutes (or two more minutes if frozen). Popeyes, of course, didn't come with directions for how to reheat.I decided to use a 425F oven for 20 minutes, and to slightly compensate for the temperature by withholding the Perdue strips until 9 minutes had passed, and then putting in the Popeyes with five minutes left. This way they'd all be done at the same time.

Ingredients?

The contenders differed from each other in a number of respects, and I was curious whether their lists of ingredients might account for some of those differences. 

 The photos aren't perfect, but you can see the following significant differences:

• Tyson's lists "buttermilk powder" while the other two don't.
• All three have sugar, although Tyson's lists "dextrose."
• Both Perdue and Publix include "yeast," while Tyson's does not.
  
• Perdue and Tyson have some corn meal or corn flour, while Publix does not.
• Publix lists "whole wheat flour" (not surprising given its name) while Tyson's only lists "wheat flour," and Perdue lists both regular and whole wheat flour.
  
• Publix and Tyson say their breading is "set in vegetable oil" (which I guess means they've been fried?) while Perdue doesn't say that.
• Publix doesn't have water as an ingredient, but it does list "chicken broth" (which I assume has water in it).
• Both Perdue and Tyson list garlic, black pepper, and paprika explicitly, while Publix only lists "natural flavors."
• All have salt. Perdue (oddly) adds vinegar. 
• Popeyes, of course, doesn't list ingredients on their packaging at all. A brief search of Google finds a lot of guesses as to what they put into their tenders. Some people say they are marinated in buttermilk before being breaded and fried. Most assessments include garlic, some cayenne pepper, . Everyone assumes there's some hot sauce (maybe even in the "mild" version), and most suggest some corn flour or cornstarch.. Many think there's probably some egg (used to "set" the breading?). (If you search for ingredients online, you can download a PDF purportedly from Popeyes that lists the very long list of ingredients. Also, this article recounts one person's attempt to recreate the recipe as close as possible, with some interesting details!) What's pretty clear is that the tenders arrive at each Popeye's location having been already prepared, and already fried once.

"Unboxing"

At around 17 minutes or so, I could smell the tenders cooking, and by 20 minutes when I took them out of the oven, they were all pretty hot. 

 

(The Biscuit was leftover Popeyes.)

The first thing I did was cut each in half for a photo. 

First was the Tyson's, which definitely looked most yummy out of the oven:

Next, the Publix, which had a slightly darker shade that suggested its "whole wheat" designation (or perhaps reflected the presence of chicken broth?):

Third, the Perdue, which, as you can see, just didn't compare in terms of how substantial the breading is, and which presented a less appealing piece of chicken:

And finally, the Popeyes, which of course looked awesome (although not quite as good as the previous day):

The second thing I did was cut off a big piece of each to eat without any sauce. The third thing was to dip each in some leftover Buffalo Bayou sauce. Finally, I finished them all, using repeated tastings to refine my judgment.

 

My Findings

Let me start with the bottom line. Popeyes, even though the tenders were slightly less delicious and a little more dry than when they were freshly cooked the day before, were certainly the best. Popeyes is especially good at "holding" the Buffalo Bayou sauce in the folds of its coating.

Both the Tyson's and the Publix tenders were quite good: crunchy coating, with moist and flavorful chicken. They differed very slightly in their taste: the Tyson's had a very slight and pleasant tang to it, while the Publix had a somewhat odd accompaniment to the primary taste: a bit of sweet dough taste that was reminiscent of angel food cake(?)! This extra Publix patina wasn't really objectionable, and was certainly too subtle to taste when doused in sauce. Plus, while the Publix Premium tender was slightly moister than the Tyson's, I'd definitely choose the Tyson's Southern Style for its slightly better taste.

The Perdue strip just couldn't compete with this crowd. While it was purchased fresh, I froze it so it was like the others, possibly removing its one advantage. Perdue makes no claim to actually be a "tender," from a chicken tenderloin. It very much was just a chicken strip. Its breading was not crunchy, just a little chewy, and the chicken had no where near the flavor that the true tenders did. Plus, there was a slight institutional taste, reminding me of the chicken patties that we used to be served in the cafeteria a school. I simply don't see a situation in which I would choose Perdue Chicken Breast Strips as my option: better to buy my own strips and slice them and bread them.

This comparison certainly room to include some additional options next time: perhaps the house brand of another supermarket such as Whole Foods?, and some of the alternative options available, including organic tenders and "tenders" made from cauliflower. It's quite possible that one of those other options would be good enough to surpass the Tyson tenders. (We'll see.)

The real question that I'm left with after concluding my tasting here is whether the Popeyes tenders are sufficiently better than the other options to choose them every time. There is the issue of convenience: if I don't have anything in my freezer and find myself craving tenders, do I drive 15 minutes to Popeyes and be almost immediately gratified, or do I go and get some frozen ones in the supermarket and head home to cook them in the oven? The prospect of immediate gratification with a better option than the others means that Popeyes will continue to win out in these circumstances. 

However, I now have about 25 tenders in my freezer, including some that aren't very good but some that certainly are passable. If I keep my freezer well stocked, maybe I'll never drive over the Caloosahatchee to Popeyes again. Or maybe not.