What Wine To Pair With Your Favorite Brand Of Tenders This National Chicken Tender Day.
Greetings VinoVossers! Happy National Chicken Tender Day! In case you are wondering how chicken tenders came to have their own day, let's take a quick look at how we got here.
From Bone-In to Order-In – A History of Chicken Tenders
Sources suggest that chicken tenders were born in 1974 at the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. They grew slowly over the 1980s as KFC trialed them as a faster-cooking alternative to bone-in chicken pieces. The big boom came in the 1990s when tenders could be found on the menus of a range of family-friendly dine-in restaurants like Chili's, Applebee's, and TGI Friday's. Today you can even get them delivered to your door via DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub.
What Wines Pair Best With Chicken Tenders?
Given that getting chicken tenders is so easy, the only real problem is figuring out which wine to have with them. Read on to find what style of wine goes with your favorite tenders.
Chick-fil-A Chicken Strips
These signature tenders get a pickle juice bath before being fried in peanut oil. The end result is a true Southern-style balance between subtle sweet and savory notes.
Dry styles of Loire Valley Chenin Blanc, including Vouvray or Montlouis, have a vibrant acidity that cuts through the richness of fried foods, along with a gentle, golden apple fruit sweetness to create a moreish sweet-and-sour note.
Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
Raising Cane's is all about the dipping sauce. The chicken fingers are the delivery vehicle. So, they are on the slightly more neutral side to maximize sauce enjoyment. The batter is crisp too, to provide a contrast to the thickness of the sauce.
The light-bodied, fruit-forward nature of Prosecco, Brut or Extra Dry, mimics the simplicity of the Raising Cane's tender, while the bubbles work to cleanse the palate in between mouthfuls of that mayonnaise-based sauce and fry batter.
Kentucky Fried Chicken Extra Crispy Tenders
KFC tenders pack a real punch. The flavorful nature stems from a thicker jacket of breading which is laced with black pepper, paprika, garlic, and salt.
Softer red wines with low tannins are good partners for spicy dishes. Wines like Lodi Zinfandel are perfect because their bold fruit intensity matches the KFC tenders' spicy punch.
Popeyes Chicken Tenders
The tenders at this Louisiana-style outlet are similar to KFC in that they pack a spice-driven punch. The spices here include white pepper and cayenne, giving you heat as well as flavor.
Riesling from Washington State gives you a gentle amount of sweetness to help temper the heat and finishes with an acid-driven, palate-cleansing tang that leaves you refreshed for the next bite.
Are You Ready for Your Next Tender Moment?
Whichever place you choose to head to today to get your tenders, VinoVoss has you covered. The great news is we can help you just as much with the next occasion that rolls around.Check us out!
Matthew Cocks for VinoVoss
