McDonald's McCrispy Strips

Today, we review McDonald’s McCrispy Strips. In April 2025, McDonald’s announced that the McCrispy Strips would become a regular offering by the franchise. This is a significant move because it has been four years since McDonald’s introduced its last regular menu item, the McCrispy Chicken Sandwich. The launch of the McCrispy Strips marked the first time McDonald’s has offered a chicken tenders item since 2021.

McDonald’s had long been known as a pioneer when it came out with Chicken McNuggets. There are a couple of differences between the McNugget and the McCrispy Strip. The McNugget is more of a tempura-style battered small “nugget” of chicken blended with spices. The McCrispy strip is a golden brown, fried, breaded chicken strip. The McCrispy Strip is longer and thinner. Both items contain white meat. McDonald’s brought forward McCrispy Strip due to the popularity of chicken tender menu items like this from many of its competitors.

In addition, McDonald’s introduced a new dipping sauce, Creamy Chili Dip, meant to pair with the McCrispy strips specifically. The Creamy Chili Dip is one of seven regular sauce offerings from McDonald’s:

Creamy Chili Dip
Creamy Ranch
Honey
Honey Mustard
Spicy Buffalo
Sweet N Sour
Tangy Barbecue

The Construction

As mentioned, the Creamy Chili Dip is a new sauce created for the McCrispy Strips. Based on that fact, it was selected for this review as the sauce. Each McCrispy Strip was dipped into the sauce as part of the review.

Size: 4 piece
Dipping Sauce: Creamy Chili Dip
Length: n/a (varies per Strip)
Weight: 9.0 ounces, including the box, but not the sauce
Location Purchased: Stallings, North Carolina
Price: $5.99
Amount Ordered: Two 4-piece units (Separately)

The Experience

The following scoring was used for the McCrispy Strips. This formula is similar to that used for the Bojangles Bo Bites review.

Chicken: 5 points
Hand Breading: 2 points
Dipping Sauce: 1 point
Intangibles: 2 points

Chicken

As I have said, the essential component of chicken tenders is. The McCrispy Strips had all white meat. The meat was mostly tender and not dry. In addition, this was not a veiny chicken. From a flavor perspective, it was also quite satisfying. Overall, this meat was superior to McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets.

Score: 3.25 points out of 4.0 points

Breading

The breading on the McCrispy Strips was advertised as a bold black pepper flavor. While I picked up some black pepper, it was not what I would categorize as bold. At the same time, I found this to be a positive attribute. The pepper balanced off some of the other breading flavors, making it quite good.

Score: 1.5 out of 2.0 points

Creamy Chili Sauce

The creamy chili sauce has a complex flavor profile. I can definitely detect some notes of jalapeño, along with hints of vinegar, lemon, and even sesame. In fact, I noticed a few sesame seeds in the sauce. The mayonnaise component, which contains egg yolk, contributes to its creaminess. I found that its presence was more pronounced than I preferred.

Score: 0.75 out of 2.0 points

Intangibles

When I score intangibles, the thing I look for is that the overall experience exceeds the sum of its parts. When it comes to the McCrispy Strips experience, one component of this score will come down to the McCrispy Strip dipped into the Creamy Chili Sauce. Overall, I enjoyed the McCrispy Strip itself, and the sauce wasn’t bad, but when it came to how the two worked together, it wasn’t an elevated experience. The Creamy Chili Sauce won’t take the experience down, but at the same time, it won’t elevate it.

On a quantitative note, the four McCrispy order was more than filling. In fact, I probably could have gotten filled up on the three-piece option.

Score: 1.0 out of 2.0 points

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

I was impressed with McDonald’s McCrispy Strips. The most essential component of this assessment was the chicken, which I enjoyed. Add a nice coating of breading, and you have a winner. While some might prefer a more peppery chicken option with the breading, I found what was used on the McCrispy strip excellent.

In my review of the Bojangles Bo Bites, I noted that the sauce plays a significant role in the overall experience. This review utilized Creamy Chili Sauce, and I would like to try the McCrispy strips with the other sauce options and see how that changes the score.

The $5.99 price point was also reasonable for the four McCrispy strips, considering they filled me up. Overall, McCrispy Strips were a nice permanent addition to the McDonald’s menu.