Trader Joe’s Chicken Drumellas Review

If you were to ask us what the single best comfort food was, we’d struggle to answer the question. There are so many possibilities that we wouldn’t know how to narrow it down to a single option. However, if you were to ask us to create a list of the best comfort foods, we could do that without a problem. Actually, there is one problem — we’d probably never stop talking!

On our super list of the best comfort foods, you would absolutely find chicken nuggets (as well as the vegetarian nuggets that mimic them). We suppose all this was just an especially long-winded way to say something pretty simple: We love chicken nuggets.

So today, we’re pleased to be sampling the Trader Joe’s Chicken Drumellas, which are the drumella-shaped version of their chicken nuggets. Trader Joe’s also makes the much chunkier Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets, which we’ve reviewed in the past, but today’s review is about the much more nuggety Drumellas. These are probably a lot closer to what you think of when you hear the term chicken nuggets.

These are fairly simple to cook. Simply preheat your oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit, lay out your nuggets on a baking sheet, and pop them in for around 15 minutes. You could also heat these in a microwave or skillet, but we chose the oven for this particular review. (If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out our package scans at the bottom of this review.

If it’s not totally clear by now, these really are the Trader Joe’s version of your most basic chicken nugget. They pack white meat chicken into a crispy shell of breading. The meat is really juicy but a little bland (as white meat tends to be), though we did notice just a hint of a fishy flavor lingering underneath it all. We’re really not sure what that’s all about, but it’s not bad. In fact, it gives these just a little bit of personality.

The breading tastes pretty good, and the consistency is pretty much what you’d expect. These are just a little bit crispy, and they have that sort of gravelly texture that breaded chicken so often does. There’s really not a lot more to say about the breading — you probably already know what you’re getting here.

There are so many great toppings for nuggets, from honey to honey mustard, ketchup to BBQ sauce. We tried these with BBQ sauce and ranch dressing, which is one of our favorite ways to dunk our nuggets. That combo works here as well as it does with most other similar items.

The box considers four nuggets to be a serving, and it estimates there are about five servings per box. If you multiply those together, that means you should expect about twenty nuggets per box. Our box didn’t disappoint; we had exactly 20 drumellas inside.

If you stick with a single serving — four nuggets — you’ll consume 190 calories (80 from fat) and 240 mg of sodium. While that doesn’t seem too bad, four nuggets is hardly a meal. A ravenously hungry adult could polish off a box of these in a sitting, though we think a more reasonable portion is half a box. Either way, those calories multiply really fast, and that’s only exacerbated by whatever sauce you decide to add.

The Trader Joe’s Chicken Drumellas are the most basic chicken nugget in the Trader Joe’s lineup. They’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect, though we found the meat to be slightly juicier than some of the competitors. We don’t have any complaints, though we also didn’t find these to do anything extraordinary. These are pretty much your middle-of-the-road nuggets, though sometimes that’s exactly what you’re looking for.

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for these Trader Joe’s chicken nuggets, check out our package scans below.