Chicken fingers

Chicken fingers
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	Media: Chicken fingers;

Chicken fingers (also known as chicken goujons, tendies, chicken strips, chicken tenders, or chicken fillets) are

breast meat (pectoralis major).^[2] They may also be made with similarly shaped pieces cut from chicken meat, usually the breast, or sometimes just pulverized chicken flesh.^[3]

Chicken fingers are prepared by coating chicken meat in a

Church's Chicken, KFC, Popeyes, Zaxby's and Culver's.^[6]

Chicken tenders were first made in Manchester, New Hampshire at the Puritan Backroom in 1974.^[7] Restaurants in Savannah, Georgia, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana have challenged this claim with later assertions to the invention of chicken tenders, although the general consensus supports the claim in Manchester.^[8] In 2023, Manchester was officially declared the "Chicken Tender Capital of the World" by Mayor Joyce Craig.^[9]

Mass production

Chicken fingers are a mass-produced product in the United States.^[10]^[11] They gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1980s as an alternative fast food choice to chicken nuggets, since they retained more chicken meat.^[12] Production can involve coating chicken meat with spices, polyphosphate and breading or crumbs, flash-frying the product to hold the breading in place, and then freezing it^[10] prior to shipment for consumer, retail and commercial use. Tyson Foods is one such company that mass-produces chicken fingers.^[11] Some are manufactured with a specific flavor profile, such as with a Buffalo-style hot sauce flavor.^[11] They are also manufactured with flavors such as Honey BBQ and Parmesan Herb Encrusted.^[13]

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.^[14]