Over the years, a LOT of things have claimed to "taste like chicken!" that have fallen very short. Only in the past year have things started to actually start to taste like chicken, and feel like chicken, which is equally important as the taste. One thing that tastes like chicken is the Trader Joe's chick'n tenders, and the second are these plant-based dino nuggets from ALDI.
Until now, as far as I know, meatless eaters were not graced with the fun of dinosaur shaped nuggets, only vaguely organically shaped nuggets. These certainly don't look like any dinosaurs I have ever seen, but then again, who really can say what dinosaurs looked like? All of our drawings, movies, and museum replicas are only best guesses. But dino-shaped they are/claim to be, so let's run with it.
Let's run all the way back to childhood, to TV dinner style meals with chicken nuggets, a vegetable, a starch, ketchup for nuggie dipping, and a glass of milk to wash it all down. If you're lucky, your mom/you made a brownie to go along with it too! But today, no such luck. Dessert was a more adult-diet appropriate slice of watermelon, not pictured, mmmm.
So How Were the Nuggets?
The outside of these nuggets are appropriately crispy after a ride in the air fryer, the best way to crisp up anything — especially plant-based things. But you can also use a regular oven, convection oven, toaster oven, microwave, and deep fryer. Directions for all but the air fryer method are on the box. If you want to use the air fryer, you'll need to do some math using this air fryer calculator.
I thought they were very much similar to kid's style chicken nuggets. They are NOT like Chik-fil-a chicken nuggets where you're biting into whole pieces of chicken. These are absolutely more in the processed chicken formed into shapes style. But when eating these, you don't have to feel weird about eating meat mush, since it's 100% meatless!
The flavor was fairly mild, and I wouldn't say it tasted overly chickeny, just vaguely savory. That doesn't detract from the overall experience though, since these are definitely one of the top two chicken nugget style meatless options I've ever had. If you want a slightly more flavorful experience, use a dipping sauce of your choice with these nuggies. I went with ketchup, but any barbecue sauce, mustard, or whatever strange dipping sauce you prefer will work just as well here as it does with regular chicken nuggets.
Make it a Nugget Meal
You can make this a fast-food style meal with fries on the side and a soda to drink. Or you can make it more of a tv dinner style by including a vegetable of your choice, a starch of your choice, and a dipping sauce to go with the nuggets. Here I had mac and cheese, and peas on the side. But you could also have mixed vegetables, corn, asparagus, broccoli; and mashed potatoes, fries, tater tots, rice and gravy... the choices are endless! Eating in the car or in front of the TV are totally optional for a more realistic experience.
Nugget Nutrition
You've probably heard that some meatless options are really that much healthier than their meaty counterparts. For the nuggets, a serving size is four pieces. That serving size contains 190 calories, 9 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, no trans fats, no cholesterol or sugars, 19 grams of carbohydrates, and 8 grams of protein. The nuggets do contain soy and wheat.
So you gain some benefits, like no cholesterol or sugar, but do have some downsides like higher carb counts, and soy intake. Decide for yourself if this is a good option to try.
Find them in the freezer aisle at your nearby ALDI!
Looking for More Meatless Options?
Trader Joe's Meatless Meatballs
Gardein Chipotle Chick'n Wings
