Raising Cane's Vs Chick-Fil-A: Which Chain Is Cooking Up The Healthier Chicken?

Fried chicken is comfort food. It's celebration food. It's football food. And it's good. So if you're going to go out for chicken (because it usually tastes so much better at restaurants), then you've got more important things on your mind than whether or not it's, strictly speaking, good for you. That said, there are definitely ways to choose more nutritious options, and which joint you head to is a factor. So, does Raising Cane's or Chick-fil-A make the healthier chicken? Let's have a look.

For the sake of consistency, we need to compare apples to apples — or chicken to chicken — here. Two chicken fingers at Raising Cane's (110 grams) are roughly the same weight as an eight-pack of Chick-fil-A nuggets (113 grams), so presumably, that's about the same amount of chicken. Raising Cane's fingers come in at 260 calories, 12 grams of fat, and 24 grams of protein, while Chick-fil-A's eight nuggets bring in 250 calories, 11 grams of fat, and 27 grams of protein. No clear-cut winner there. If you look at CFA's Chick-n-Strips, a two-pack has 200 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 19 grams of protein but slightly less chicken (only 91 grams).

Now for the tiebreaker: The eight-pack of Chick-fil-A Nuggets has 1,210 milligrams of sodium! That's more than half your recommended daily amount, which, according to the Food and Drug Administration, is 2,300 milligrams. A pair of CFA chicken strips have 870 milligrams, but Raising Cane's chicken fingers have way less sodium, at 460 milligrams. This gives an edge to Raising Cane's — but the battle's not over yet.

Yes, Raising Cane's doesn't pack its chicken with quite as much salt, but Chick-fil-A redeems itself by being a healthier option overall. The Raising Cane's menu is very limited, but CFA, on the other hand, has a much more extensive selection, where you have a better chance of finding something suited to your dietary requirements. It offers many nutritious options, including grilled chicken, egg whites, salads, a fruit cup, and even a side of kale.

If you go grilled, you can get eight nuggets for just 130 calories and 3 grams of fat, right around half the calories of the classic fried nuggets. The sandwich with grilled chicken has 390 calories and 11 grams of fat, which is on the low end. Chick-fil-A also offers more nutritious options than a typical fast food joint. Its grilled chicken sandwich is served on a toasted multigrain bun. The Chicken Cool Wrap comes on a flaxseed flour flatbread. The Berry Parfait is made with organic vanilla bean yogurt, and the Market Salad is chock-full of superfoods.

If you're looking for chicken with flavor, you can't go wrong with either Raising Cane's or Chick-fil-A. But if you want chicken that tastes good and is also somewhat wholesome, it's CFA all the way — unless, that is, you live in Alaska or Vermont, the only two U.S. states without a single Chick-fil-A location.