In order to be a true chicken tender—not chicken nuggets, chicken strips, or something like Burger King Chicken Fries—the item needs to be made from the actual tender of the chicken breast.
When a popular restaurant chain's bread and butter, so to speak, is chicken, it's little surprise that it takes things up a notch.
Hardee's has been making a big deal about its hand-breaded chicken tenders for well over a decade now. They even have meals with the qualification right there in the name.
Sure, Popeye was a sailor, but it's the chicken, not the seafood, that keeps people coming back.
KFC's freshly-prepared tenders are extra crispy (and actually, that's Extra Crispy™) and they come with multiple dipping sauces.
Raising Cane's has one type of protein on the menu, and that's chicken. No beef, no fish, no Impossible this or that, no pork—just chicken.
The beloved chicken tenders from Church's Chicken are hand-crafted all day long, per this Texas-based chain's site.
OK, you got us: technically Long John Silver's does not offer hand-breaded chicken tenders, but rather hand-battered chicken tenders.