Aldi chicken is having a moment. For a couple of years now, fans on social media have raved about red bag chicken, also known as Kirkwood Breaded Chicken Breast Fillets.
But Aldi sells more than just red bag chicken. Their frozen chicken selection also includes a range of chicken tenders, chicken strips, or chicken fingers in various flavors. In the past, we’ve reviewed the Kirkwood Honey Battered Chicken Breast Tenders, also known as yellow bag chicken among Aldi fans, and these are a decent frozen chicken option if you want a quick, easy meal. There are also buffalo-style chicken strips. Here, we’re taking a look at our favorite among the Aldi chicken tender options: the standard crispy chicken strips.
Kirkwood Crispy Chicken Strips cost $4.95 for a 25-oz. bag at the time of publication.
Because Aldi fans on social media like to refer to Aldi chicken by the color of the bags, this is also known as the Blue Bag Chicken.
It’s a Regular Buy, which means it’s in stores year round.
This blue bag chicken consists of breast fritters with rib meat. It is made with white meat chicken and is fully cooked.
Ingredients are boneless skinless chicken breast meat with rib meat, water, rice starch, and salt, and the chicken is breaded with wheat flour, water, salt, corn starch, spices, dried garlic, extractives of paprika, brown sugar, spice extracts, and breading set in vegetable oil.
If you’re watching out for allergens, this chicken contains wheat.
Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)
One bag contains about eight 3-oz. servings. One serving has 190 calories, 8 grams of total fat (10% DV), 1.5 grams of saturated fat (8% DV), 600 mg of sodium (26% DV), 18 grams of total carbohydrates (7% DV), 0 grams of sugars, and 13 grams of protein.
This chicken can be heated in a conventional oven, microwave, or deep fryer.
To bake it, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the frozen chicken strips on a baking sheet. Heat 15-20 minutes.
To microwave, places frozen chicken strips on a microwave-safe plate. Heat on high at the following times:
- 1 strip for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes
- two strips for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes
- three strips for 3 minutes
Let the chicken strips stand for 1-2 minutes after microwaving before serving.
To deep fry, heat oil to 350 degrees. Fry the frozen chicken strips for 3-5 minutes.
Chicken strips with Ranch for dipping.
This chicken turns out great no matter how you heat it. I often bake it, freeing up my air fryer to make fries to accompany our meal. I only microwave it if I’m in a hurry because it turns out less crispy that way.
The chicken has crispy breading and tender meat on the inside, and it’s good enough that my kids sometimes request it as their special birthday meal. We also like to throw a bag of these in the cooler to take on trips when we stay in a rental house or a cabin with a kitchen stocked with cookware, since it’s easy to find a baking sheet in a cabinet and heat these in the oven.
Chicken strips with Ranch dressing and a side of fries.
These chicken strips are also a fantastic way to showcase many Aldi dipping sauces, from Burman’s specialty BBQ sauces to good old Ranch, or (what the kids often prefer) just basic ketchup and mustard. So don’t forget your sauce when you go shopping at Aldi.
If you want something a little different, you can also dice the chicken strips and serve them atop a garden salad for a restaurant-quality meal.
While the bag says it feeds about eight people, my family of four usually eats an entire bag of these chicken strips in one meal, so plan accordingly.
While they aren’t exactly the healthiest food, and some of the ingredients are a bit vague (I’m looking at you, “spices” and “spice extracts”), you can’t beat Aldi chicken fingers for a fast, easy meal or a special treat.
The Verdict:
Kirkwood Crispy Chicken Strips, also known among Aldi fans on social media as blue bag chicken, is a family favorite. It cooks easily and quickly in the oven, microwave, or deep fryer (or in an air fryer), and it features crisp outer breading and tender white meat chicken inside. Serve with your favorite dipping sauces from Aldi, or top a salad with them for a meal that’s as good as any restaurant’s.
If you have a Costco membership, they have a 4 pound bag of these https://www.justbarechicken.com/products/lightly-breaded-chicken-breast-chunks/
They’re around the same price per pound, but taste a bajillion times better. (Yeah, that’s a word. I’m sure of it.) Nice light breading, cooks up super crispy in the air fryer. They’re so good!
while I found the chicken strip quite tasty, I could not totally enjoy them because of the very high salt content; definitely not for someone with hypertensive issues.
I was hopeful when I bought these and tried these. They’ve doubled in price from the time of your review as they are now over $8 for the 25 oz bag at aldi. I will not buy them again. For two reasons. I thought that the batter was way too thick for the meat and they were overly salty. So much so that they were practically inedible and the only way to mitigate the saltiness was to dip them in some sort of sweet sauce which is not what I would have chosen to do. I would rather eat them just as a chicken tender without sauce. Also the flavor of the batter did not add much to the overall experience. Some positives, are that the chicken was tender and that the method of baking them was very easy. I could see why these would appeal to little kids. But I wouldn’t serve them to mine because of the salt content.
To clarify: they cost about $5 a bag when I wrote this post three years ago. If they had doubled in price, they’d be $10 a bag. They’re currently listed as $8.25 on Instacart, at least in my area, as prices may differ by region.