PC NASHVILLE HOT STYLE CHICKEN WINGS - Quarantine Frozen Wing Review

I can't tell you how excited I was to try this review.

President's Choice Nashville Style Chicken Wings.

PC launched a whole wack of Nashville Hot products: wings, chicken bites, even shrimp. When they came out I was excited to get them and they were all on sale! Well, that's not true. The wings didn't go on sale. All other chicken wings went on sale, the bites, the shrimp all went on sale, but the Nashville wings specifically did not. So I didn't buy them, because I'm cheap. My wife heard me complaining and because she cares, said just buy them. So I did.

If you are not familiar with Nashville Hot Chicken, essentially its fried breaded chicken that's covered in an oily-paste of cayenne pepper, served on a slice of white bread and pickle slices on top. It's a very peppery, spicy but oh so good combination.

The box doesn't do this style justice and if you don't know what it's all about to begin with, you're going to be lost. But PC is banking on people knowing about trends, and Nashville hot has been big the last couple of years.

Some things that jumped out from the box is that the weight of the box is 907g, with a minimum (aka maximum) of 13 pieces.

Inside that box are the bag of wings, the Nashville Hot glaze, and Buttermilk Ranch.

These wings were clumped together and there was a fair amount of ice crystals in that bag.

I turned the oven on to 450 (much hotter than most frozen wings say to do, but that's what they say to do!) and while it heated up, I put the sauce packets into warm water to defrost. I knew the Nashville Hot sauce was going to be something different because it was different than other PC hot sauce packets. It was much more oily than thick, which is good because Nashville Hot is supposed to be more oily than creamy/thick. I did not have much hope for the Buttermilk Ranch.

When the oven was hot enough and the wings went in. I had them on a baking pan with parchment paper. While the box says there are minimum 13 wings, I actually got 16 wings!

After baking for about 20 minutes, flipping once, the wings were ready. They are breaded but it's not thick. It's also not evenly covered on the wings. Some of the wings were pretty greasy but not all.

Actually as a plain fried wing these didn't look too bad. So far so good.

That sauce packet was thawed and you can see the difference right away. I took that as a good sign as there are really two key components to Nashville Hot chicken: crispy chicken and spicy sauce. So far we had crispy chicken ...

I poured the whole packet all over the wings and there was lots of sauce for each wing to be coated and for there to be leftover. Awesome.

I tossed the wings and it seemed like the breading was holding up to the sauce. This was promising too for this product. They also had that Nashville signature smell of peppery-goodness.

I plated the wings and they looked good, but something was missing.

Bread and Butter pickles!!! I didn't have white bread so that was out, but pickles helped pick up the appearance and the authenticity on this tasting. Now that looks like Nashville Hot chicken.

Our meal overall was a bit random. We were having some mozza sticks from the back of the freezer, as well as a bit of dip with tortilla chips. Oh there's some carrot sticks too. You know, to make it healthy, and for the ranch dip I guess.

The size of; they aren't the biggest but they aren't the smallest either. Let's say just right but not perfect. They were also not an even mix of flats and drum which was surprising: 6 drums and 10 flats. Weird.

That high heat and the light breading on them led to really crispy skins. I really liked the texture on these wings and the crispiness that came from their recommended technique. The meat was relatively tender and what you would expect from a frozen wing.

The sauce on these wings worked so well. As I've already said, the sauce is oily, but still thick, and it clung on and enveloped every crevasse of the wing, and with that breading that meant there was a lot of surface area for the sauce to grab onto. It also held up to the sauce and didn't get soggy which was great.

It's peppery and hot, but not too spicy. It has a kick, which I enjoyed and was almost too much for LJ, but she really liked it. You can taste the cayenne, but it's also a salty heat. It is kind of a one note heat, and so adding that pickle made these wings perfect because the sweat tang of the bread and butter pickle helps cut that acid and the oily heat bitterness that's there. But it was really good.

As for the Buttermilk Ranch, PC why do you even bother? Just stop putting in crappy cream dips with the wings. It tastes artificial and it's just not good.

WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN?


Yes. No doubt. Already have. Got a box in my freezer. These are crispy/crunchy wings that have a pretty spot on Nashville Hot sauce on them. It's spicy and peppery, and while the heat isn't killer, it's respectable. The flavour of the heat is peppery cayenne, and is almost bitter on it's own, so I strongly suggest you add Bread and Butter Pickles, or any chip-cut sweet pickle to make it both more authentic and to cut through the Nashville sauce. Well done on this product PC, well done. 10/14

President's Choice
Nashville Style Chicken Wings