12 Fast Food Chicken Menu Items That Contain More Than Just Chicken

There probably aren't too many relatively savvy fast food consumers who think that the chicken-based items they frequently order are going to be made of 100% cooked bird. After all, most if not all fast food chicken — whether it's the fillet inside of a sandwich, diced chunks in a salad, or various permutations of strips, nuggets, or tenders (yes, there is a difference) — has been seasoned, battered, sauced, or cooked in some way, not counting all the industrial processes that got it from the factory farm to a random restaurant.

Not counting the breading or the cooking oil used for quick frying or even the sauces and marinades used to impart flavor on the grilled options, many popular and well-known fast food chicken items aren't exactly what they seem. Many contain a surprisingly high proportion of fillers, bulking agents, preservatives, and chemicals designed to bring, ironically, more chicken flavor in the places where actual chicken was removed. Why not use 100% chicken? It's too expensive and too hard to maintain a level of quality with a fresh product. Here then are the fast food menu items made from chicken that is also packing some other ingredients, dubiously and secretively.

Burger King may be the "Home of the Whopper" and various other famously flame-broiled hamburgers, but the mega-chain has plenty of customers who hit up the place for its chicken. It's got one of the most notable poultry sandwiches in fast food history with its Original Chicken Sandwich, a long hoagie roll containing lettuce, mayonnaise, and a big, oblong patty of breaded, fried, pressed, and formed chicken meat. It's essentially a massive chicken nugget, not unlike the chicken nuggets the chain sometimes sells for the extremely and curiously low price of $1 for 10.

Chicken is relatively expensive, and Burger King makes both its Original Chicken Sandwich and nuggets cost effective by bolstering what's in the meat with lots of cheap, non-meat ingredients. Virtually identical in chemical composition, both products contain chicken breast and rib meat all mixed up, along with autolyzed yeast extract, which makes food taste more savory and meaty. The chicken is also bulked up with water and alternately chicken broth and dried chicken, to provide chicken flavor taken out by the removal of actual chicken. Altogether, so many fillers are used that Burger King's chicken isn't wise to consume for those suffering from allergies to eggs, milk, wheat, gluten, or celery.

In 2017 the CBC television show Marketplace in Canada revealed data from its investigation that sought to uncover the makeup of the chicken from several fast food companies. It submitted the protein used in two Subway products, the patties from the Oven Roasted Chicken Sandwich and the strips in the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki. According to multiple rounds of DNA testing and analysis, researchers found that the roasted patty was made of 53.6% chicken and the strips were just 42.8% chicken. While seasonings and fillers occupied a small portion of the remaining percentage, the vast majority of Subway's chicken was actually soy, the report stated. Salt was also over-represented, with samples containing as much as 10 times the amount that one would find in grocery store chicken. according to CBC's report.

Subway disputed the results and blamed its contractors. "Our recipe calls for one per cent or less of soy protein in our chicken products," the company said in a statement (via CBC). "We will look into this again with our supplier." But according to the company's official ingredients list, last revised in 2022 (five years after the Marketplace investigation), neither chicken product is solely chicken. The oven roasted patty is made with breast and rib meat along with a chicken flavor mixture containing salt, stock, sugar, chicken fat, and other ingredients. Subway's grilled chicken listed a soy protein concentrate content of 2% or less, higher than what the company claimed was present in 2017.

As one of the largest pizza chains in existence, Domino's thrives on offering as many possibilities to as many people as possible. Among the dozens of toppings that can be added to any of its regular or specialty pizzas is something called grilled chicken (premium chicken), a less greasy alternative to the traditionally beef and pork-heavy pie meats including ground beef, Philly steak, Italian sausage, ham, bacon, and pepperoni. There's nothing particularly premium about these rubbery, grill-marked pieces of chicken that taste both not like chicken one would buy at a supermarket and cook themselves and curiously too much like chicken.

That's all because of the industrial processes that make it possible to ship and store these protein nuggets to Domino's all over the country. The grilled chicken isn't completely real chicken, but a product that begins with chicken, namely boneless skinless chicken breast and rib meat. The supplier then combines that with water and a seasoning blend that contains yeast extract, powdered onion, buttermilk powder, and a host of other ingredients. Also present are derivatives of chicken removed from other birds and then added back into this chicken to make it taste more like chicken, including chicken fat, chicken powder, and chicken broth. This is to say nothing of various food starches and preservatives to extend the shelf life of the pizza topping.

The Chicken McNugget altered the fast food landscape and changed the way Americans eat chicken. Before the arrival of the bite-sized pieces of boneless fried chicken at select McDonald's locations in 1981, most poultry in the U.S. was eaten off the bone. The McNugget created a demand for bone-free meat. It was so popular that McDonald's couldn't provide its entire network with enough product until 1983. That also prompted most other burger chains to adopt some sort of chicken nugget option.

In 2003, McDonald's announced it had reformulated the Chicken McNuggets to contain all white-meat chicken. Now, that technically means that the chicken used is coming from mostly the high-quality, low-fat breast of the bird, with no thigh or leg meat utilized. It didn't mean that the insides of the Chicken McNuggets would consist entirely of pure chicken. McDonald's needs every McNugget to taste the same, every time, at its many thousands of locations. That morsel is a marvel of modern food technology, inside and out, and is the result of a great many ingredients. White meat chicken with the bones already taken out is the first item listed, but it's followed by water and four different kinds of plant oil — canola, corn, soybean, and hydrogenated soybean. Chicken McNuggets, which can be reheated back to perfection, also require enriched flour, bleached wheat flour, yellow corn flour, and vegetable starch made from derivatives of corn, wheat, rice, and peas.

Most everybody in the fast food world has a chicken nugget of some kind, and the Carl's Jr. version, available on its own or as part of a kid's meal, comes in the shape of a star, an allusion to the chain's logo and mascot of a smiling celestial body. As a result of this decision, neither Carl's Jr. nor its eastern United States sibling chain Hardee's can hide the many processes and ingredients required for the product — it's not natural or easy to make chicken into uniform, bite-sized breaded and fried stars.

They're not whole pieces of breast or rib meat, but made from chicken chopped and formed into a paste that's been prepared and cooked. Along with the chicken, the stars of the Chicken Stars include soy protein and beef flavor, which itself is made from not just cows but wheat, corn protein, and hydrolyzed soy, beef fat, and an animal-vegetable protein hybrid listed as "chicken type flavor."

Tex-Mex seasonings, used abundantly throughout the menus of fast food places like Del Taco, are very forgiving. Enough spicy, salty taco seasoning can cover up the taste of not-quite-totally-chicken to the point where it just tastes like standard quick-serve Mexican-style food. Industry leader Taco Bell should watch out for Del Taco, which uses a heavily sauced and seasoned grilled chicken in many products, including its Grilled Chicken Taco, Grilled Chicken Stuffed Quesadilla Taco, and Classic Grilled Chicken Burrito. Del Taco goes far beyond the kinds of things found in a packet of easily attainable supermarket taco seasoning, with ingredients that comprise the actual protein, not just the flavor.

A Del Taco menu item made with grilled chicken contains a mélange of poultry — the chain's mix includes breast, rib, and leg meat. Its ingredient list further states the chicken legs contain up to a whopping 30% of a solution of water, seasoning, and sodium phosphates. That seasoning is further broken down into ingredients to bulk up the meaty texture, including gluten derived from corn, chicken broth, chicken fat, whey protein concentrate, hydrolyzed soy protein, and corn syrup solids.

Arby's started out in the mid-1960s as a purveyor of roast beef sandwiches, and although the real story behind Arby's name indicates the chain's moniker doesn't refer to the initials of its main product, it eventually billed itself as the fast food chain that "has the meats." As a result, it's since added a variety of chicken-based products to its national menu. The actual lineup changes with different preparations coming and going, but several permanently available sandwiches, including the Crispy Chicken Club Wrap, Crispy Chicken Sandwich, and Chicken Bacon Swiss Sandwich, all are built from the same basic boneless, breaded, fried chicken filet patty, which is essentially the same product as the chicken breast strips used to make Chicken Tenders.

The filet bolsters the chicken breast and rib meat with fillers, extenders, and flavor enhancers derived from plant and animal sources, such as hydrolyzed corn protein, dried chicken broth, lactic acid, and modified food starch. Curiously, one of the most used elements is whey powder, very similar to the kind used in muscle-building protein powders. As for the strips, those get their meaty taste and texture from not just chicken but also soy protein and powdered whole eggs.

Dairy Queen's entire operation seems to be about selling its customers items that appear to be nostalgic, old-fashioned all-American favorite comfort foods but that are really not what they seem at all. Dairy Queen's soft serve isn't what you think it is, for example. It doesn't contain enough milk fat to be legally marketed as ice cream. It's more akin to ice milk or "artificially flavored reduced fat ice cream," as the chain's ingredients list identifies it. It is made up of a number of chemicals, food derivatives, and extracts. The chicken at Dairy Queen, namely the boneless, battered, and fried pieces that are foundational to its chicken strip meal combos and baskets, also don't shy away from artificial, synthetic, and scientifically created ingredients.

The chain may proclaim that the strips are made from "all white meat tenderloin chicken strips," but that designation only applies to the actual chicken in the product. Real chicken isn't even the main or first listed ingredient in Dairy Queen's chicken strips. They're technically fritters, meaning they're not whole filets, and up to 18% of each strip is made from a slurry of water, salt, sodium phosphates, and hydrolyzed soy protein.

Culver's, which may be better than In-N-Out, built its marketing and image on a homestyle, Midwestern vibe, promising treats of frozen custard and butter-soaked ButterBurgers made from products out of Wisconsin-based dairy farms populating a menu "perfected in Sauk City, Wisconsin." The mostly eastern United States chain is primarily known for those two unique and singular items, but it also sells a handful of fairly generic fast food chicken products, such as its Original Chicken Tenders and a Crispy Chicken sandwich. Loaded with lots of non-farm fresh chemical ingredients and additives, they don't exactly fit in with the cozy Culver's vibe.

The fried and breaded chicken pieces aren't entirely made of chicken. After chicken and water, but before salt, the most dominant ingredient is modified tapioca starch, an add-on used to provide texture and thickness to processed foods. It has the same intended result as the also-present chicken-helping ingredient sodium tripolyphosphate. As for the patties in the Crispy Chicken sandwich, those include torula yeast, hydrolyzed soy protein and corn protein, and chicken flavor. In both products, all of those extra ingredients are used in the meat — the breading offers much longer lists of industrial flavoring and boosting agents.

Raw chicken never comes in the shape of a circle with a hole in it, so that's a big clue right there that the finger-food poultry product available at White Castle is heavily processed. The chain famous for its tiny, greasy, onion-flavored hamburgers sells its version of the nugget that looks a lot different than similar products sold by other fast food companies in that they're literally Chicken Rings. Sold in regular or spicy varieties and available at White Castle outlets and in supermarket freezers, Chicken Rings are extremely thin and heavily breaded, and what's underneath that golden brown coating is a whole lot more than plain, pure chicken.

In addition to the usual chicken breast with rib meat, Chicken Rings are also made out of water, salt, sodium phosphates, starches from corn and potato, carrageenan (a seaweed derivative), chicken broth, and powdered cooked chicken. Yes, to get the chicken taste just right, White Castle adds a concentrated and dried chicken product. That's made via an elaborate industrial process that involves spraying chicken to dry it and then crunching it up into a fine powder.

Growing into a national chain in less than two decades, Smashburger named itself after its signature product — hamburgers made with patties smushed until they're very thin and then cooked up on a scalding hot griddle. It didn't have to do much more than sell a particular burger in a particular way, but Smashburger still tries to attract the beef-averse with a small selection of chicken products. Notably, it serves some Chicken Tenders that are light and crispy on the outside, juicy and meaty on the inside.

Smashburger attests that the strips are made from "all white meat," but that's a little misleading. The composition of the average tender at Smashburger involves about 80% poultry, so "all" of that is chicken. The remaining and staggering 20% of the rest of the chicken strip is made from a long and complicated series of ingredients. What isn't chicken is a solution made from water, modified food starch, MSG, assorted spices and oils, some flours and wheat derivatives, chicken fat, and powdered chicken broth. And even if diners wanted to avoid beef entirely at Smashburger by ordering the Chicken Tenders, they can't — the chain fries the poultry strips in beef tallow and canola oil.

With everything from burgers to tacos to rice bowls to jalapeño poppers on the menu, Jack in the Box aims to have a little bit of something for almost everyone. The mostly western-U.S. chain serves a wide variety of fried and breaded chicken-based entrees, too, like chicken nuggets, crispy chicken strips, a bargain chicken sandwich, the Cluck sandwich, Jack's Spicy Chicken sandwich, and the Homestyle Ranch Chicken Club sandwich. Not one of these uses protein made from 100% chicken underneath all the breading.

The crispy chicken filet used in the premium chicken sandwiches contain yeast extract, soybean oil, MSG, and silicon dioxide, an anti-caking substance. Also present in the filet, and in Jack in the Box's crispy chicken strips, are buttermilk solids, used instead of dried proteins, because they retain moisture. Cheaper, lower-quality chicken products at Jack in the Box are bulked up with soy protein concentrate (the nuggets) and modified food starch (the fried chicken patties).