The Fast Food Chain With The Cheapest Chicken Nuggets

Chicken nuggets are an American fast food classic: portable, easy-to-eat bites of juicy chicken with a crisp coating and wrapped in the nostalgia of childhood nuggies. We all have our fast food nugget faves, whether it's McDonald's O.G. McNuggets or more recent entries like Chick-fil-A's whole meat version. (Costco has duped Chick-fil-A's nuggets with its own copycat.) To find out which are the cheapest, we took a look at offerings from the leading fast food chains that serve nuggets, and Burger King's Chicken Nuggets took the low-price crown.

Before explaining how we determined BK's cost the least, let's briefly talk chicken nuggets. Fast food chains have two types of nuggets: the classic kind pioneered by McDonald's (which are not made with pink slime), and the style that resembles chicken tenders. The former version is made with ground chicken mixed with fillers, binders, and seasonings before being formed into a nugget, coated with batter, and fried. They can also contain other parts of the chicken besides meat, such as fat, connective tissue, and bones. The chicken tender-style nuggets are fried pieces of white breast meat that are breaded or battered.

McDonald's was the first fast food chain to introduce chicken nuggets, debuting them nationally in 1983 with honey, sweet and sour, hot mustard, and barbecue dipping sauces. But the company didn't invent them. Cornell University agricultural scientist Robert C. Baker first created bite-sized pieces of molded and breaded ground chicken in 1963.

Burger King's nuggets cost the least in the fast food field; they're priced at $2.49 for eight of its Chicken Nuggets, or 31 cents each. We discovered BK's are the cheapest by comparing prices from 10 fast food chains in the same market — Houston, Texas — and determining the cost per nugget. A six-piece size was used when available; if not, we used a five- or eight-piece size. Half of the chains we considered have traditional nuggets, including Burger King, while the other half are tender-style.

The traditional nuggets are the least expensive: At 50 cents each, Jack in the Box's Chicken Nuggets are 19 cents higher per piece than Burger King's nuggets, while Wendy's Crispy Chicken Nuggets rank third at 60 cents apiece. The Chick-fil-A Nuggets are 65 cents apiece and the cheapest of the tender-style ones, while McDonald's Chicken McNuggets are 67 cents each.

The most expensive nuggets are Popeye's Classic Boneless Wings, which are tender-style nuggets with a fancier name. They are $6.99 for six, or $1.17 each. Tied for second-priciest are Shake Shack's tender-style Chicken Bites and Carl's Jr.'s Chicken Stars (from a nearby Austin location), which at 92 cents per nugget, makes Carl's Jr.'s nuggets the most expensive option for the traditional variety. The final two are both tender-style: Taco Bell's Crispy Chicken Nuggets, which are out for a limited time in 2025, are 80 cents, and KFC's Nuggets, which are 70 cents each.