A chicken nugget is a piece of chicken, either whole or composed from a paste of finely minced meat, which is then coated in batter or breadcrumbs before being cooked. Fast-food restaurants typically deep-fry their nuggets in oil. Oven baking is the usual method of preparation at home, although many home cooks use a deep-fryer in order to replicate more closely the style of restaurant-cooked nuggets.

Chicken nuggets are often made using a high proportion of chicken skin. This is because without the skin the consistency would not be sticky enough for the nuggets to hold together. Food labelling law dictates that skin need not be distinguished from the actual meat used to make the nugget. The remainder of the nugget is most likely to be made up of mechanically recovered meat.

Owing to the preparation methods of chicken nuggets, chickens raised to be consumed as nuggets may not be as well-treated as poultry meant for other forms of consumption. That is why organizations such as PETA typically do not endorse the consumption of chicken nuggets.

The invention of the chicken nugget is often attributed to JJK Booth (1788-1853), a farmer from Wisconsin, although this has never been categorically proven.