The Difference Between Chicken Nuggets And Boneless Wings

If you've ever been to a restaurant that serves bar food, such as pizza, subs, or wings, you may notice that the restaurant offers boneless wings. At first, you may think of these boneless wings to simply be just that: chicken wings with the bones removed. But the truth is that these curiosities aren't exactly "wings" at all. Rather than the classic drumettes or flats you'd expect from wings, boneless wings are actually whole meat cuts of chicken breast — again, not the wings — that are butchered, breaded, and fried before being tossed in wing sauce.

While the main appeal of these quasi-wings is to cater to customers who want only the meat without any bones, you may find yourself thinking that this seems like an incredibly familiar concept. Breaded boneless chicken in bite-sized shapes served with sauce? Isn't that just another way of describing chicken nuggets?

Although chicken nuggets and boneless wings do sound like they share some common traits, the major difference between them is how nuggets are prepared compared to boneless wings. Chicken nuggets are made with chicken just like boneless wings — just not exactly whole pieces of chicken like you might expect. Instead, chicken nuggets are more or less bite-sized ground chicken patties rather than whole-muscle pieces of chicken breast.

When you bite into a boneless wing, you expect it to be a whole-muscle piece of white meat. There's nothing else in that chicken aside from the meat and whatever breading the restaurant uses. When you bite into a chicken nugget, however, you may notice that the texture, while still tasting like chicken, doesn't seem to match what you'd find in a regular piece of chicken. This difference in texture is one of the factors separating a genuine boneless wing from a chicken nugget.

A chicken nugget is, in most cases, basically ground-up chicken meat formed into a particular shape. The chicken meat is ground, mixed with seasonings — depending on the company, there may also be fillers and additives added as well — industrially shaped, breaded or battered, pre-cooked, and then flash-frozen.

The debate of whether boneless wings are merely chicken nuggets by another name may sound like a pointless internet argument, like people debating whether a hot dog is actually a sandwich. But you'd be surprised to learn just how seriously some people take it. Back in March, sports bar chain Buffalo Wild Wings was actually hit with a false advertising lawsuit that claimed its boneless wings were nothing more than chicken nuggets. 

While boneless wings and nuggets differ in how they are produced, with the nugget being ground up chicken formed into a shape and a boneless wing being a whole piece of chicken, one more detail separates them. Chicken nuggets were invented in the 1960s, while boneless wings were introduced sometime in the 21st century.

As the story goes, Cornell University food scientist Robert Baker discovered that by grinding up the leftovers of boneless and skinless chicken, he could form, bread, and fry the meat into "chicken sticks." This invention may have been inspired by the surplus of poultry after World War II, which left many people struggling to find new ways to reinvigorate America's love for chicken. Baker's molded and breaded chicken product, which would later evolve into chicken nuggets, came about in 1963, just two decades earlier than McDonald's McNuggets which debuted as early as 1981.

The boneless wing is a bit of a more recent invention, showing up as early as 2009 in The New York Times. Buffalo Wild Wings, surprisingly enough, is thought to have started selling them as early as 2003, although the debate over whether the brand's boneless wings can be considered wings or just fancy chicken nuggets muddies this claim. Whether you believe the boneless wing is just a chicken nugget or something entirely unique on its own, there's no denying that many restaurants have found success selling these boneless chicken bites to hungry, chicken-craving customers.