Taco Bell isn’t chicken when it comes to entering the nugget wars

It’s almost 2025. McDonald’s introduced the Chicken McNugget over four decades ago. Is it possible to find a new twist on the nugget? And is it possible for that twist to come from a fast food chain that sells tacos?

That’s the question we have to ask about Taco Bell’s big rollout for its Crispy Chicken Nuggets. The new menu item became available nationwide on Thursday, and after realizing I was right by a Taco Bell while running an errand, I knew that I had to put an order in to try these nuggets.

The bar for a chicken nugget is very high. You either need to hit the iconic notes of McDonald’s Chicken McNugget or you need to differentiate yourself by making a nugget that’s of a higher quality like Popeyes.

Taco Bell promises that their Crispy Chicken Nuggets will “push the boundaries of innovation yet again.” I was intrigued to see what this promise meant. For Taco Bell, innovation often means “hey, look at this gimmick.” Doritos Locos Tacos, putting a giant Cheez-It in the Crunchwrap, the Naked Chicken Chalupa — all technically innovation, but also just gimmicks.

Based on the increasingly crowed fast-food chicken market (CNBC tells me there’s a new chicken war brewing), I got the sense that Taco Bell is serious about the Crispy Chicken Nugget. This isn’t supposed to be gimmick. Was it?

Where I found it

You’ll be shocked to learn this, but I found them at Taco Bell.

What I paid

A ten-piece nugget with the sauces rang up at $6.99 before tax.

My thoughts

I ordered the ten-piece Crispy Chicken Nugget, because I’m a growing adult and I need more than five nuggets for a meal. I had to swing back to Taco Bell since they accidentally only gave me a five-piece nugget, and I’m glad I checked since the sizing on these nuggets is all over the place. Maybe five of the bigger nuggets would’ve been enough for a meal, but the full ten-piece ensemble was a much safer bet.

Taco Bell says that their nuggets “defy traditional nugget norms with a crunchy tortilla chip breading for maximum crisp and flavor in every all-white meat chicken bite.” While I couldn’t see a ton of tortilla chips in the breading, these are crunchy nuggets. When you bite into a nugget, you can see the breading as its own layer. And, as promised, the chicken isn’t the ground-up stuff that you’d get in a nugget from McDonald’s or Wendy’s. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) These are pretty high quality nuggets.

“As the inventors of Nacho Fries, Taco Bell is fully aware that reinventing an American classic with a Taco Bell twist is a responsibility we don’t take lightly,” Taco Bell chief marketing officer Taylor Montgomery said in the company’s announcement. “But in a world dominated by chicken cravings, it was time to show the world how Taco Bell does chicken nuggets — unexpected and undeniably bold.”

In a weird way, I’d say, yeah, these are nuggets done how Taco Bell would do nuggets. The breading is its own thing. But it’s done in a much subtler way than you’d expect from Taco Bell. The breading isn’t made of crushed Doritos or Cheez-Its.

Flavor-wise, they can stand on their own. I ate a couple nuggets before turning to the sauce. I’m not sure what Taco Bell’s process is for making these nuggets. Do they have dedicated fryers? Do they share the fryers with their Nacho Fries? Does this mean the nuggets and fries are permanent menu items now?

We gotta talk about the three new sauces that Taco Bell introduced for these nuggets. (Taco Bell calls them “irresistible.”) When you order the new nuggets, you can choose from Bell Sauce, Hidden Valley Fire Ranch Sauce or Jalapeño Honey Mustard Sauce. When I ordered on the app, only two of them were showing up, but I was able to get the honey mustard option at the drive-thru window.

It feels like Taco Bell really wants the Hidden Valley Fire Ranch Sauce to be the big hit out of this trio, with it getting a lengthy shoutout in the restaurant’s press release, but I thought the Jalapeño Honey Mustard Sauce was the real winner. I did my best to jump between the three sauces, but I found myself repeatedly coming back to the honey mustard. It has just the right amount of heat to pair with the nuggets. I had high hopes for the Bell Sauce, but I guess I’m not sure what I was imagining a Taco Bell signature sauce would taste like. Feels like a missed opportunity for a Baja Blast sauce ...

Final verdict: BUY

I really enjoyed Taco Bell’s Crispy Chicken Nuggets and their accompanying sauces. Especially the Jalapeño Honey Mustard Sauce.

It’s hard to compare any nugget against McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets. When you want a McNugget, it’s not that you’re craving a chicken nugget. You’re craving a McNugget. (It’s like when you want Pizza Hut. It’s not pizza you’re craving.)

I’d put the new nuggets up there with Popeye’s nuggets. They’re bigger. They’re crunchier. And if they stick around, they’re going to open Taco Bell up to a new audience. (I’m talking about my daughter.)