Wendyl Wants To Know: Maggi So Crispy Bites Spicy Coating Mix

Maggi So Crispy Bites Spicy Coating Mix.

It’s a convenient product which has the benefit of letting you give the kids home-made nuggets

My youngest lived on chicken nuggets as a child so I have become quite the expert on them. It is true that the ones you find in the freezer do contain breast meat and not other disgusting parts of the chicken like carcass and skin, but not a lot.

This coating mix is designed to help you make your own out of chopped chicken breast and I'm all for that kind of convenience.

But first we need to check what is in it.

Ingredients (in order of greatest quantity first):

Breadcrumbs
(51%) wheat flour, rice flour, soy flour, yeast, salt, emulsifier (481), colour (caramel III)

This tells us that the coating is just over half breadcrumbs. The rest will be made up of the stock powder mix for flavour.

Unlike breadcrumbs you might make at home from stale bread, this mix also has the emulsifier sodium lactylate (481) which is a sodium salt, and colour caramel III which is made out of heating sugars with ammonia.

Stock powder mix

Maltodextrin (from corn)
This is a form of sugar, taken from corn.

Vegetable fat [vegetable fat, rosemary extract, emulsifier (322)]

Not sure what vegetable oil is in here, but it has rosemary added for flavour and the emulsifier lecithin (3220) which is a natural product.

Salt

Modified starch (1412)
This will be in here as a thickener, similar to cornflour. It is distarch phosphate (1412)

Sugar
Not a lot of sugar in here at 1.8g per serve, so this will be in here for a bit of flavour.

Spices
Paprika (4.8%), chilli (0.4%), black pepper (0.2%) and turmeric (0.1%)

Soy sauce: powder (contains wheat and soy)
This is soy sauce which has been dehydrated.

Garlic: powder

Tomato: powder

My recommendation
Chicken nuggets are extremely popular with kids and they've had a bad rap for being filled with chicken skin and carcasses.

Although I have to say that when I've looked at frozen chicken nuggets in this column that have at least contained breast meat, although one was only 31 per cent breast meat and the other 55 per cent.

So the myth that they are really just a bit of chicken with some crumbs on top doesn't quite hold true.

Better to make them yourself and know that you are feeding your kids 100 per cent chicken, and if that means using this pre-mix crumb product then I say you're well ahead.

At least you're using fresh breast meat cut into chunks and any additives found in the crumb mixture are not much to worry about.

So go forth, crumb that chicken and make your own chicken nuggets tonight.

Highlights
• Breadcrumbs have added colour.
• You will still need to coat in egg to get the mix to stick.
• No artificial flavours, colours or MSG.\

Do you have a food product you would like to feature in Wendyl Wants to Know?
Email wendylwantstoknow@gmail.com with suggestions. Unfortunately Wendyl cannot correspond with readers.