REVIEW: Wendy’s Saucy Nuggs

When I eat chicken nuggets, either from Wendy’s or another fast food chain, I tend to eat them without any sauce. That delectable fried chicken flavor is enough for me, and I don’t need to muddy it up with many other flavors. Hear that, all you kids with your fancy nugget-dipping sauces? Get off my lawn! (Wait, actually, come back and mow my lawn. Please? I’m begging you.)

Now Wendy’s has laughed in my face by putting out a whole line of nuggets that are absolutely drenched in sauces. And, of course, they come with extra dipping sauces, so you can have some sauce in your sauce. Naturally, I was skeptical but intrigued by this opportunity to see how the other half lives.

There are four main varieties, but technically, there are seven: The Honey BBQ, Buffalo, and Garlic Parm all come in spicy or not-spicy versions, depending on whether they are prepared with Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Nuggets as the base product. To me, the non-spicy version represents the default version, so that’s what I went with. The Spicy Ghost Pepper Nuggs, however, are only made in the spicy variety because a Ghost Pepper-branded food that isn’t spicy makes no sense.

As I’ve noticed with other fried chicken products, like Pizza Hut’s WingStreet boneless wings, the sauce application is a little bit haphazard. Some pieces were absolutely drenched in sauce, while others only had a little spotting of it. You can rectify this by using your nugget as a little sponge to soak up the sauce on the bottom of the plastic tray, which sometimes works.

The Saucy Nuggs come with Ranch and Blue Cheese dipping sauces, as you would expect. Even though I typically skip this option, I did try the Nuggs with them this time for the sake of being thorough. I know. My commitment to chicken-based journalism knows no bounds.

On the whole, I was impressed with Wendy’s latest offering.

Honey BBQ

This uses a textbook-standard honey barbecue sauce on the sweeter end of the spectrum. They are perfectly fine but not remarkable in any way. It makes for a good blank canvas if you’re really planning on going to town on the ranch and blue cheese.

Buffalo

The perfect level of mild spice that mixes well with the dipping sauces, and the classic pairing of Buffalo sauce with blue cheese is a winner. This is exactly how spicy I like my food, and I would definitely order these again. These made me a little nostalgic for the brief time I actually lived in Buffalo when I didn’t eat the wings nearly as often as I should have.

Garlic Parm

The big surprise of the lot. The garlic and parmesan flavors are clearly discernible, but neither is overpowering; it’s a surprisingly delicate flavor. The texture is also different from the other nuggets, more closely resembling a nice, crunchy piece of real fried chicken, greasy but in the best way. Either the ranch or the blue cheese will obliterate the subtle flavor, so be sure to have these naked. The question with these is not whether I will order them again, but “How long will they be on the menu? Please say it’s the whole summer!”

Spicy Ghost Pepper

The wildcard: Just how spicy were these going to be? I was timid, so I took my GP nugg with a healthy dollop of blue cheese to balance out the heavy spicing. Even with the cooling agent of the dipping sauce, the heat in the back of my throat from just one of these things was nearly more than I could handle. Fortunately, my husband is one of those people who asks for the maximum spice level when we go out for curry, so he was able to field this one for me and eat the rest of them. He said they were great and that these, and the Garlic Parm, were the ones he would definitely order again.

So, all in all, it was a rather good outing for our intrepid redhead, who I would say has been on a roll lately…except for the new Triple Berry Frosty. Hey, even Babe Ruth didn’t hit a home run every time he stepped up to the plate.

Size: 10 piece orders (40 pieces total)
Purchased Price: $5.79 each
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Honey BBQ), 8 out of 10 (Buffalo), 10 out of 10 (Garlic Parm), and Husband Approval out of 10 (Ghost Pepper)
Nutrition Facts: Honey BBQ – 590 calories, 29 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 80 mg of cholesterol, 1450 mg of sodium, 56 grams total carbohydrate, 2 grams dietary fiber, 30 grams total sugars, and 25 grams of protein. Buffalo – 530 calories, 36 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 80 mg of cholesterol, 2800 mg of sodium, 26 grams total carbohydrate, 2 grams dietary fiber, 1 gram total sugar, and 25 grams of protein. Garlic Parm – 940 calories, 80 grams total fat, 17 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 80mg of cholesterol, 1610 mg of sodium, 29 grams total carbohydrate, 2 grams dietary fiber,1 gram total sugars, and 27 grams of protein. Ghost Pepper – 900 calories, 17 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 95 mg of cholesterol, 2060 mg of sodium, 30 grams of total carbohydrate, 2 grams of dietary fiber, and 27 grams of protein.