Are you guys ready for this? Maybe you should sit down. Have a fainting couch nearby and some smelling salts.
Because this is The Greatest Day in Chicken History.
At least, according to KFC, it is. Well, technically it was April 14, when they launched their new Original Recipe Boneless Chicken. But with such a bold declaration, I’m going to assume KFC thinks every day that Original Recipe Boneless Chicken exists is still The Greatest Day in Chicken History.
You’d think that would be enough of a marketing campaign, but KFC isn’t done yet. They’re pushing the slogan “I ate the bones!” hard through commercials and social media, including a #iatethebones contest starting April 22nd wherein you can submit your “best I ate the bones! face” in order to win money.
In case you haven’t sussed it out yet, the commercials show various people looking down at their empty KFC boxes and completely losing their shit, yelling “I ate the bones!” like they’re having an autistic freakout.
“Holy shit, I am so in love with this chicken that I ate the fucking bones and didn’t even notice, I may be dying and in need of medical attention” is not quite the ad campaign I would have gone for, but KFC is really committed to it.
Because I am a heartless jerk, I hope this leads to dozens of news stories about people actually eating KFC bones. Even better, I want to see pictures of people choking on bones entering the #iatethebones contest. That’s real commitment. I hope all KFC employees have been trained to give the Heimlich maneuver.
For a large chunk of my life, I refused to eat chicken-on-the-bone. It grossed me out. All those veins and tendons…no thanks. My chicken world was restricted to nuggets and strips, which is kind of funny, since I’m sure whatever goes into making nuggets is more disgusting than a bone. Even chicken strips weren’t what they are today in both quality and availability, so I think old me would have been thrilled at the idea of KFC Original Recipe Boneless chicken.
Fortunately I have expanded my culinary horizons since then, so I’m perfectly fine gnawing on a leg or a thigh. But if this Boneless version can stand up to KFC’s regular Original Recipe, I may go back to my no-bone ways. Plus, that’s one less thing for my cats to try to dig out of the trash while I’m asleep.
My first impression when I saw the two pieces of Original Recipe Boneless Chicken that came with my meal was that they were a little smaller than, say, a bone-in breast, but they were still fairly sizable.
The piece of white meat actually did resemble a chicken breast, and the breading looked just like Original Recipe, although less greasy.
I was pleased when I ripped the white meat piece apart. It was obviously juicy, and it did, indeed, taste juicy. The chicken was just the right texture, too.
I have no idea how KFC makes their Boneless pieces happen. I’d like to think it’s Gary Larson’s vision come to life. No matter how they do it, I was pleased that it didn’t feel or taste like a Frankenstein’s chicken monster – it had the taste and texture of a chicken breast, with the added bonus of not having to work around bones. This resulted in a more even breading-to-chicken ratio.
As for the dark meat Boneless piece, it seemed a little more misshapen than the white, making it look a little odd. Exactly what part of the chicken did this come from? You know what, don’t answer that.
I was pleased when I ripped it open to see that it was obvious that this was the dark meat piece. I mean, it’s not like they came labeled, but I had my suspicions as to how the dark meat piece would actually pan out. It also didn’t look processed or cobbled together on the inside, despite its outward appearance.
I found the dark meat piece to be not only more flavorful, but also a little juicier. These are things I typically feel about dark meat vs. white meat, so Boneless really scored there.
When you’re dealing with bone-in chicken, you tend to have to work a little harder to get that dark meat, and there’s less of it than you’ll find on a white meat chicken breast. I found this a particularly nice quality in the dark meat Boneless, because being able to eat a big, juicy piece of dark meat with even breading and without having to work around bones and other…stuff was a unique and enjoyable experience.
Please take note that I am staying far, far away from “big, juicy dark meat” entendres.
In the end, I enjoyed both pieces. Both had juicy and tender meat that tasted like I was eating chicken and not chicken by-product. The breading-to-meat ratio was great on both pieces, and there was a noticeable grease decrease. I found this to be both good and bad – while it added to the crunch of the breading, I found myself missing the pleasure of eating those greasy pieces of skin. That could be a plus or a minus, depending on your viewpoint.
One thing I did notice was that, when you rip the Original Recipe Boneless white meat into pieces, it feels pretty similar to eating chicken strips, which is something you could easily order off the KFC menu and get pretty much the same experience.
Where I felt the Original Recipe Boneless really shone was with the dark meat piece. It had more flavor, and the experience of eating a big ol’ piece of dark meat with little effort and with a nice distribution of breading was pretty unique.
Have I reformed back to the chicken-off-the-bone ways that I had worked to conquer? Not completely. I missed the skin and the greasiness of bone-in chicken, while on the other hand, I loved having such a large piece of dark meat that I could chomp and crunch easily.
Fortunately for me, KFC offers buckets that are part Original Recipe Boneless and part regular bone-in Original Recipe. If I’m hankering for some skin and grease but still want that large-piece-chicken experience, that would work great. Or, if I just want to rip into some crunchy dark meat, I could get my 2-piece Original Recipe Boneless meal with two dark meat pieces. It’s nice to have options.
I just hope I don’t accidentally eat the bones. And because I’m not a wild, laughing hyena ripping into my KFC chicken with wild abandon and incredible jaw strength, I don’t think that will be a problem.
KFC Original Recipe Boneless Chicken
- Score: 4 out of 5 laughing hyenas posting their #iatethebones faces on Twitter
- Price: $4.99
- Size: 2-piece meal with individual side, biscuit and drink
- Purchased at: KFC #D212045
- Nutritional Quirks: I feel like there’s a quirk behind-the scenes in regards to how KFC makes their Boneless chicken happen. I’m also pretty sure I don’t want to know what it is.
Other reviews that did not eat the bones: Brand Eating, Fast Food Geek, GrubGrade
thanks for saying chick-fu is good, you enjoy that crap . i for one will stick to real chicken. ohh a chicken nugget, notice it doesn’t say at KFC 100% chicken.. you people allow a corporation to sell you additives instead of real chicken . did the price of kfc go down?? no…. stupid people eat stupid food and kfc believes there are alot of stupid people. so thanks to people like you, kfc won’t be serving fresh chicken anymore but chicken flavoured tofu..lolololol. well i won’t pay chicken prices for tofu. Sobaad.
I can’t eat chicken on the bone, so this interests me.
And Derrick, chicken flavored tofu? Sounds DELICIOUS! I’m down, it could come wrapped in rice with a garnish of seaweed ribbon. They could call it the ninja chicken special! KFC desu!
The more I think of it, the more ill-conceived their “I ate the bones” campaign seems.
Are they saying that their customers are too stupid to remember that they actually ORDERED boneless chicken, or that their customers are shocked that they actually received what they ordered?
Neither really seems like a message they’d want to convey.
Haha, but both are rather hilarious, Mr. Grits. I, too, cannot fathom how this was the best slogan the KFC marketing team could come up with. While I should be surprised, I still constantly am.
Eh, i would have gone with a claymation parody of Back to the Future III…You could have Mad Dog Tannen as a Drumstick, complete with mustache. His gang could be assorted wings and thighs too! We place this nugget of marketing gold in the saloon, with marty played by a piece of new boneless chicken (white or dark, at your discretion. For accuracy alone i would suggest white meat). Tannen growls out “You’re boneless, Dude!” and marty turns his back to walk out the doors as Tannen then replies “What are you, Chicken?” and Marty turns around and growls out “Yes”.
Yeah, i know, probably a small target demographic for this piece of marketing manna from the ad-gods. Still, i would have bought more chicken because of it…Back to the Bucket, part III!
Hahaha, while strange, it’s still better than the current campaign. Good luck with getting the copyright for that!
I spent $58.00 on a 20 piece boneless meal last night at the KFC at Grant and Silverbell in Tucson, AZ last night and neither of us could eat even one whole piece. It was so incredible nasty that I thought they had had a seasoning accident and tried to eat a bite off of several different pieces and nope it is just totally gross. It was so bad that I called the store to complain and find out if someone had tried to poison us by putting something in the food and I got an instant canned response delivered in one breath attesting to how safe it is cooked and how their quality control process is, so I guess everyone is calling them and complaining about how nasty it is. We gave all of the chicken to our 3 dogs and 2 cats and it is still in the bowl today. They scooted it around and dragged a couple of pieces out, but after tasting it,they have soundly rejected it as well. For nearly $60.00 we sure could have had a much, much better dining experience. KFC is permanently off my dining list. These things are like chunks of chicken glued together by a gray slurm paste and some of the chicken was still pink inside, even thought it was glued together by the gray stuff- there is no way it was done. I don’t even know what they used to season it- it tastes nothing at all like any fried chicken I have had from anywhere- really weird and super super salty and I usually add salt to the point that you can see it on fried chicken, but this is way, way too much. Their mashed potatoes tasted like they just stirred some water in the potato mix and slapped it into the container without cooking it- it had a really nasty grainy consistency that had nothing to do with potatoes. I used to love the gravy, but even that wasn’t very good. Their macaroni and cheese was good-out of the whole order that was the only thing worth eating. So not worth sixty dollars!
Derrick, I posted your statement “I won’t pay chicken prices for tofu.” on my facebook and it got 3000 likes. Way to go, dude! Funniest line ever!