What Cut Of Meat Does Taco Bell Use In Its Chicken Nuggets?

A Mexican-style fast food chain may not be top of mind for chicken nuggets, but Taco Bell is answering customer demand with its own crispy version, slated to become part of the permanent menu by 2026. However, because Taco Bell is known for its affordability, customers may wonder what cut of meat is actually in these nuggets.

Taco Bell's crispy chicken nuggets are made of jalapeño buttermilk-marinated pieces of whole-muscle, all-white meat chicken breast. This is a relatively premium way to make chicken nuggets, which typically have breast meat mixed with fat and other cuts that are ground to a uniform texture. Taco Bell, on the other hand, takes its whole-muscle breast pieces and coats them with a mix of breadcrumbs and tortilla chips, for an extra, Mexican-inspired crunch.

Taco Bell is so affordable partly because it uses cheaper base ingredients. It once even faced a lawsuit over allegedly using lower-quality beef, suggesting that its chicken may cut costs in a similar fashion. It's therefore a welcome surprise that Taco Bell's chicken nuggets perhaps use better ingredients than other menu items – although this higher quality may have something to do with some customers feeling that they are too expensive.

Taco Bell first launched these chicken nuggets in late 2024 with runaway success. Some might say chicken nuggets are nothing without a good sauce, which is why Taco Bell released its nuggets with a legendary sauce collaboration: mixing its own Fire hot sauce with Hidden Valley Ranch to create Hidden Valley Fire Ranch. 

The nuggets rapidly sold out and left the menu, only to come back in 2025 with another great nugget-specific Taco Bell sauce collaboration. This time, they're also served with a Mike's Hot Honey Diablo sauce, combining the well-established flavors of two popular sauces: Mike's Hot Honey and Taco Bell Diablo Sauce. But if you missed out on Hidden Valley Fire Ranch, that is available again as well. 

Daily Meal reviewed Taco Bell's crispy chicken nuggets after their 2025 relaunch, and we were immediately impressed. The solid pieces of breast meat had a clean, high-quality texture. The inventive breading was pleasantly crunchy with a hint of heat and without being too greasy. If the nuggets had one drawback, it's that we also found them to have an underwhelming value compared to the rest of Taco Bell's menu, which offers substantially more food for similar prices. But that may be the price for their notable quality.