Want McDonald's Nuggets At Home? This Frozen Chicken Brand Is The Closest You'll Get

When you want a taste of McDonald's McNuggets but don't want to go out and get the real thing you have two options. The first is to follow a copycat recipe for McDonald's chicken nuggets and make them at home. Your second option is to find a suitable knockoff product. Crafting your own might be an entertaining way to spend an afternoon but purchasing a perfected product will probably be closer to what McDonald's offers, and according to some folks online Tyson might have just what you're looking for.

In the subreddit r/mcdonaldsemployees, someone posted a description of Tyson Tempura Chicken Breast Nuggets and asked if they were the same product customers get at McDonald's. The comments indicate it isn't the exact same product, but some thought it might be similar to the real thing. One person said, "These will probably be the closest you will find on the market, McD uses a tempura batter, most home nugget brands use a breadcrumb coating." Others agreed, but without the commercial cooking equipment McDonald's uses to cook them some people mentioned they would probably taste slightly different.

Walmart has Tyson chicken nuggets available, but they don't have the tempura breading. The 10-pound boxes of frozen Tyson nuggets mentioned on the Reddit are a bit difficult to find, however. The food supplier Food Service Direct sells them for $66.95 per case, and the reviews back up what the Redditors had assumed. One review said, "Very good and very close to McNuggets." Another person wrote, "Out of all the store brand nuggets, this is as close to Mickey Dees as you can get."

Another person who reviewed the Tyson Tempura Chicken Breast Nuggets noted that while they taste fine out of the air fryer, deep-frying them is the upgrade they deserve. If you don't have a bona fide fryer at home you can achieve the same result using a tall pot filled with a few inches of oil. Heat the oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (a candy thermometer will tell you when it's at the right temp), then use a spider strainer to lower the nuggets in and retrieve them from the hot oil when they're cooked to 165 degrees.

You can enjoy your faux McNuggets as is, but the full McDonald's experience isn't complete without one of the chain's tasty dipping sauces. If you're into copying Kim Kardashian's favorite McDonald's order, the restaurant's Honey Sauce is just Grade A honey, so that one's easy to source from the supermarket. The others, however, are proprietary recipes that aren't yet sold in stores.

If the Spicy Buffalo Sauce is your jam, you can buy a close approximation. A former McDonald's corporate chef, Mike Haracz, who makes TikTok videos about the chain's signature recipes noted in one video that the ingredients in Crystal Buffalo Wing Sauce and Sauce Craft Buffalo Sauce are both similar to the Golden Arches' version. As for the others, like the Tangy BBQ (the perfect McDonald's dipping sauce in our eyes) you can follow Haracz's lead by researching the ingredients and then comparing them to what's available for purchase. Alternatively, you can get cheffy and attempt to duplicate a sauce at home.