Parents may not like to admit it, but if you asked most children, then chicken nuggets will be up there with their favourite food.
They may also not own up to partaking in the occasional nugget feast themselves, but I'm sure plenty do. It can't just be me knocking out the odd beige platter from time to time.
Judge as you will, but there's a reason they're one of McDonald's best selling products and feature on the Happy Meal menu, and that's because people love them.
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With prices of just about everything going through the roof, we decided to see how the supermarket brands compared.
We're not talking budget brands here, the likes of Asda's Just Essentials have had enough coverage this week, we're just talking about their own labelled products.
But of course we've taken a look at Birds Eye too. With their fish fingers getting headlines of their own earlier this week after reaching the hefty price of £7 for a pack of 30, we needed to see how their nuggets compare.
Finding the nuggets in each store was the first challenge. With everything from popcorn chicken and chicken fingers to chicken dippers and chicken balls now available, finding your basic nugget wasn't as easy as it sounds.
We got there in the end though, arriving home with a pack of your typical breaded chicken nuggets from Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's - along with a pack of the Birds Eye ones which we picked up from the latter.
Choosing the smallest bag available from each shop, it was soon apparent that the pack sizes differ greatly, from 38 in the Asda pack, to just 22 in the packs from Morrisons and Lidl. We'll deal with the prices later.
But what was even more stark was the size difference of the nuggets themselves. Aldi's were the smallest - chicken bites would probably be a more accurate description for those.
Tesco and Sainsbury's are pretty small too, with Birds Eye being slightly bigger and Asda, Morrisons and Lidl what you'd typically expect in a nugget.
All were oven cooked as per instructions, taking from around 16 to 18 minutes. Only Birds Eye had the shorter time of 12 minutes and despite my reservations were perfectly cooked within that time. So you know which to go for if you want food in a hurry.
Unlike its fish finger sibling, which appeared lighter in colour in last week's comparison, the Birds Eye nuggets were more orange than most of the others - with only Tesco's coming close to the 'you've been Tangoed' crumb colouring and Sainsbury's not far behind.
Of course the chicken content in these nibbles varies too and the 'made with 100% chicken breast' label isn't always quite what you'd expect.
It doesn't mean the whole thing is made from 100% chicken, but rather the portion of meat that is used is made from 100% breast, rather than other parts of the animal, but still mixed with other ingredients such as wheat flour, starch and salt.
The actual percentage of chicken breast in each of them is ranked here (Sainsbury's and Tesco below as theirs are not breast)
- Aldi - 60% chicken breast
- Asda - 58% chicken breast
- Lidl - 55% chicken breast
- Morrisons - 51% chicken breast
- Birds Eye - 51% chicken breast
- Sainsbury's - 60% chicken
- Tesco - 58% chicken
Price wise the cost of each pack means nothing when the packet and nugget sizes differ so much. With five out of the seven packs weighing 450g, we've worked out what the other two (Asda and Birds Eye) would cost for the same weight to give a more accurate comparison. This is how they rank on cost
- Birds Eye £4.15 (can be found cheaper elsewhere)
- Sainsbury's £1.75
- Tesco £1.75
- Morrisons £1.65
- Asda £1.61
- Lidl £1.49
- Aldi £1.39
So what about the taste?
Regardless of their shape and size, taste is undoubtedly the most important factor. After all, nobody is saving any money if you end up buying a packet that no-one wants to eat.
With comments from our three young taste testers ranging from 'too chewy' to 'a bit bland', we're certainly not dishing out a Michelin star here. But even our youngest has almost a decade of nugget eating under his belt, so we know a good one when we taste one.
Both Birds Eye and Sainsbury's were crispy but lacking in flavour somewhat, unlike Aldi's and Tesco's, which both went down a treat, albeit the smaller size means you're eating more breadcrumbs and less chicken with each mouthful.
Morrisons also got the thumbs up on flavour, but were let down by their chewiness and what one of our tasters described as 'jelly-like texture'.
As for the best we couldn't decide between two - Asda's and Lidl's - both a decent sized, flavoursome and golden nugget, with just the right amount of crispness on the outside and softness in the middle.
While both are up there with the highest for proportion of chicken breast, if we have to pick one winner it'll be Lidl based on the fact they're also cheaper.
Despite having already ploughed their way through the platter of nuggets, along with some corn just to make it slightly healthier, it was that pack my taste testing Olivers were asking for more of. If that's not a product endorsement then I don't know what is.
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