"In a world dominated by chicken cravings, it was time to show the world how Taco Bell does chicken nuggets – unexpected and undeniably bold," Taylor Montgomery, Taco Bell's chief marketing officer, told Food & Wine last week. "Our Crispy Chicken Nuggets deliver a crispier, more flavorful nugget experience."
“Experience?” We didn’t realize chicken nuggets were that deep.
Look, we all have adolescent-ingrained soft spots for chicken nuggets. Toss in a couple of requisite dipping sauce packets (McDonald's Sweet 'n' Sour or Chic-fil-A's Polynesian), and we're good to go. Many of us have outgrown fast-food chain chicken nuggets as a dietary staple, but still, if you handed us any of those right now, we wouldn’t say no.
And although it’s fashionable to diss Taco Bell, we're still not above the occasional Taco Bell Mexican pizza run. But Taco Bell nuggets? That feels like going to KFC and ordering a burger.
Taco Bell says their nuggets have a “zesty jalapeno buttermilk” flavor. And to properly Taco-Bell these nuggets up, the breading is made of a crushed tortilla chip blend. And you can’t have nuggets without signature dipping sauces, thus Taco Bell’s Fire Ranch (a Taco Bell-Hidden Valley collaboration), Jalapeño Honey Mustard and Bell Sauce.
We stopped by Taco Bell on nugget opening day — surely a momentous occasion across the country — but as far as we could tell, they weren’t even advertising these limited-time nuggets anywhere on the storefront windows (at least at this location). For $3.99, you get five pieces with one sauce; for $6.99, get 10 pieces with two sauces. We ordered the 10-piece. Our sauces: Fire Ranch and Bell Sauce.
To our disappointment, our nuggets looked borderline burned when we opened the box. But according to someone claiming to be a Taco Bell employee in the comments of a YouTube review video, they're "supposed to look like that." According to this employee, "Fresh out of the fryer, they’re tender and light-colored, but the longer they've been warming, they become drier and darker. If you’re dining in, it’s worth a shot to ask them to drop some fresh ones.”
Our two-cents verdict: they’re OK. I think the kids call that "mid." They're serviceable if you're in desperate need of a nugget fix. They’re forgettable, though. And Taco Bell isn’t going to join the chicken nugget Mount Rushmore of McDonald’s, Chic-fil-A and Wendy’s anytime soon.
The sauces, like the nuggets, weren’t memorable, either. We failed to find a hint of the “zesty jalapeno buttermilk” flavors in the nuggets that Taco Bell promised. The tortilla chip breading was different, but it sounds better on paper than it is IRL. Granted, it did appear that our nuggets had been sitting for a bit before they made their way to our Taco Bell bag, so perhaps your nugget "experience" will turn out better than ours if you can get your hands on some as soon as they're lifted from the fryer.
Taco Bell’s chicken nuggets are available for a limited time only. If you need to try them for the novelty aspect, go for it. Otherwise, you're probably not missing much.
