The Best Grocery Store Copycat For McDonald's Chicken Nuggets

Faring much better than failed items like the onion nuggets that preceded them, McDonald's iconic Chicken McNuggets have been bite-sized consumer favorites since they debuted in the 1980s. If you're among the millions of fans of the poultry gems, you may, at times, find yourself craving a serving but not particularly desirous of a trip to the drive-thru. Not to worry. There are some great grocery store dupes you can stock your kitchen with, so when hunger strikes, you don't need to travel any further than your home freezer.

A former McDonald's corporate chef has shared (via TikTok) one supermarket McNugget imitator that makes a great at-home copycat: the tempura chicken nuggets from the Pilgrim's brand, which show up on retailers' websites under names like Pilgrim's Chicken Breast Nuggets Golden Tempura Style and similar variations.

Viewers of the TikTok video hastened to the comment thread to ratify the assertion with their own McNugget experiences while eating the Pilgrim's product. "I knew it," one commenter declared. "They do taste almost the same." Another poster stated, "They are 95% the same. Highly recommend."

While some praised the chef for revealing this at-home McNuggets hack: "Thank you for your service[,] you magical human," one enthused; however, not everyone was thrilled with his viral revelation. "I knew this [and] was trying to keep it a secret, dang it," one commenter lamented. "Telling everyone makes it harder to find them!!" It's a valid complaint, it seems, as the Pilgrim's nuggets appear to be widely out of stock from many retailers that have carried them, and some Redditors report the product has been discontinued. However, these duplicate nuggets are still around if you know where to look.

In his TikTok video, the former McDonald's chef mentioned that the dupe nuggets may show up under other brand names. Pilgrim's Pride Corporation, maker of the product, operates various poultry brands, including Country Pride and Just Bare. Other TikTok commenters asserted that Country Pride tempura nuggets are another McNugget twin, to which responders (including the former McD's chef) pointed out they are the same item manufactured by the same company under a different brand.

In 2024, Redditors bemoaned the disappearance of a product called Country Pride Tempura Raw Chicken Breast Nuggets, which had packaging identical to the Pilgrim's item and tasted remarkably like (you guessed it) McNuggets. One Redditor reported finding them in 2026 at a Gordon Food Service Store, and 10-pound boxes are available on the Gordon Food Service Store website under the name Pilgrim's Pride Ready To Cook Tempura Nuggets, as of September 2026. The product is also offered through U.S. Foods Chef'Store under the name Pilgrim's Foodservice Tempura Nuggets. The Pilgrim's Foodservice website lists them as "Tempura Breast Chunks 2/5# Ready to Cook," though you can't order directly from that site. Pilgrim's Foodservice (the flagship brand of Pilgrim's Pride Corporation) sells in bulk to entities like restaurants and cafeterias via in-house salespeople.

The ingredients are by no means identical between Pilgrim's nuggets and McDonald's McNuggets, but they feature some of the same cuts of meat, and their coating components are similar enough to yield a reasonable duplication. It's the tempura batter that gives them that McNugget-esque crunch and feel. While many fast-food and supermarket nuggets have more crumbly breading, the signature battered exterior on McNuggets is due to a final tempura layer that's applied when they're manufactured.