Here's What You Need To Know About Boneless Wings
Whether you like spicy Buffalo or tangy barbecue-style, wings are a favored and versatile party snack that resides in the part of our memories marked, "Yum." According to the National Chicken Council (yes, it's a real thing), Americans were projected to eat a whopping 1.35 billion wings during the 2018 Super Bowl weekend. That is a tremendous amount of wings. This insanely large number really proves how popular chicken wings are within the American society. So, it is no surprise the raising of an eyebrow occurred when we first heard of boneless chicken wings.
A chicken wing is typically made up of two parts: The meat of the chicken and part of the wing bone. But if there's no bone, is it really a wing? Actor and chicken connoisseur Jimmy O. Yang answers this question with an emphatic no (via Bon Appetit). He even compared them to a Frankenstein creation. But is he right?
Boneless wings are actually chicken nuggets
Yang is correct in his description. A boneless chicken wing is typically made up of the white breast meat of the chicken, per The New York Times. The meat is cut up into strips, then breaded and tossed with sauce. So what do most people prefer? According to a survey by the National Chicken Council, 60 percent of wing eaters prefer traditional bone-in wings, while 40 percent prefer boneless. This could be because the boneless wings don't have the same fat content that the bone-in variety has, which is what helps give them their great flavor.
Since the gap isn't wider, we're guessing a lot of people enjoy the convenience of not having to eat around the bone. And it's much less messy, which is ideal if you want to order wings on a date and don't want to gnaw on a bone in front of a potential love match. Even so, Yang writes in Bon Appetit, "I can't believe we allow this to happen as Americans who value the truth. If people can get away by calling breast meat as boneless wings, what's to stop someone from selling rat meat as USDA prime rib-eye?" That seems a bit extreme, but perhaps a name change is in order.