Dominos Launches New Chicken Sides With New Sweet Mango Habanero Sauce

Domino’s Pizza Chicken?

Yup, for the first time in over 9 years, the Michigan based pizza chain is revamping their chicken offerings.

The venerable Detroit Free Press recently posted that Chicken is the New Star in Domino’s ads. You can read their post to get the PR spin, but THIS post will focus on what you get in the box.

As the box pictured below states:

Our new wings are crispier than ever while our new boneless chicken is now lightly breaded with savory herbs and made with 100% whole white breast meat.

They also go on to say you can get their new wings sauced in the new Sweet Mango Habanero Sauce, BBQ, Kicker Hot Sauce, Ranch or Blue Cheese offerings. All of the sauces come in 1.5 ounce tubs.

I ordered the 8 piece boneless chicken with the Kicker Hot Sauce. (The manager had already slipped me a “sample” tub of the new Sweet Mango Habanero Sauce … for review purposes of course.) As you can see in the pic below, the contents were dwarfed in the box that is clearly designed for the 14 piece boneless chicken, as well as serving double duty for breadsticks and the like. The side of the box even says “14 Piece” – Available in 8, 14, and 40 piece party sizes.

Note: This is a small Domino’s store that either did not receive the smaller box for 8 piece offerings, or does not have room for the extra stock of boxes. The small store plays a part in other differences that you will see later in this post.

Now I’d like to show you a side by side comparison of Domino’s promo pic of the 8 pieces and the actual pic of what I received. (They always hate this part!) And yes, I will get to the sauce – patience kind reader!

I’m not going to fault Domino’s here. All the chains do this. You get a picture perfect styled photo of the food, but what you end up with at purchase is much more realistic. What I will point out is that 8 pieces should mean just that – 8 – or more to make up for the little guys, …. not the 7½ pieces that I got here:

Yup, that little guy on the right was apparently counted as one piece. Hey Domino’s, instruct your people that a bitty piece is not really “one” and just toss a few more in for good measure. You’ll be ok. I know this because I will occasionally leave a penny in the “Need A Penny – Leave A Penny” cup at my local retailers, and I’m still solvent. Ha!

Let’s move on to review the boneless chicken and sauces. Let me point out here, that Domino’s has decided to call their boneless chicken pieces a very vague term… they are not tenders, nuggets, pieces, bites, poppers, snacks, snackers or any other noun… they are simply Boneless Chicken. Ok. That is to the point and does not step on any other chains’ toes.

Supposedly, this new recipe replaces their old recipe that was spicier. I did not ever try the “old” recipe. But I will say, these “boneless chicken” things are delicious. The breading is indeed “light” and “savory”… albeit a bit salty. Hmm. Is *anything* out there in the fast food world that is *not* salty? (Sells more beer or more Coke… we know what you are up to!) So there is that, but otherwise they really do bring on the flavor, and really are savory, and are light years ahead of the other chicken-nugget-bite-things of the other guys.
The chicken itself is very tasty, it’s not deep fried, it’s oven baked. Nice level of spices. 6 pieces cost me $8 and change.
So, there’s Kudos No. 1.

Now onto the sauces. I chose the Kicker Hot Sauce and the new Mango Habanero Sauces to compare. Let’s dig in!

Domino’s Kicker Hot Sauce

A really nice cayenne sauce… the red pepper is probably cayenne. Really tasty. Probably one of the better pre-packaged hot sauces that you would get at McD’s, or Wendys. Thick, best tasting of them all, but the heat is about a 2 on a scale of 5. Kudos No. 2.

Ingredients: red pepper, distilled vinegar, water, soybean oil, salt, ancho chili peppers*, garlic*, Xanthan gum, caramel color, celery seed, onion*, spices, natural and artificial flavors, propylene glycol alginate, molasses, corn syrup, sugar, tamarind, calcium disodium ETCA added to protect flavor, red #40. * Dehydrated

Domino’s New Sweet Mango Habanero Sauce

While chicken may be the Star, I was solely interested in their new Sweet Mango Habanero Sauce… which brings me to the point of this review.

This sauce has the look and feel of a sweet chili sauce. Slightly golden in color, think duck sauce meets chili sauce. Yet the taste is very much influenced by the mango puree. A very sweet tasting sauce, you get a little sting on the lips. Then the slow burn from the habanero kicks in. This stuff has some serious heat. Hotter than the Kicker sauce – this is a “pretty girl packing a weapon”. Heat level 3 out of 5.

Ingredients: water, sugar, corn syrup, vinegar, orange juice concentrate, modified corn starch, mango puree, jalapeno peppers, spices, lime juice concentrate, habanero peppers, bell peppers, onion, salt, garlic, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate (as preservatives).

The New Domino’s Wings

To round out this review, the next day I made it a point to get an order of each of the New Wings from Domino’s – both the Kicker Sauce Wings and the New Mango Habanero Wings.
As a note, the store manager informed me that at his store, they cook the wings and then serve the Mango Habanero Sauce on the side – in the little plastic tub. The bigger, busier stores have commercial sized jugs of the sauce that gets poured onto the finished wings, whereas at this smaller store they only have the small tubs. I requested that he douse my wings as if he had the sauce on hand. Beware, your mileage may vary.

Both of these wings were remarkably tasty! While the chicken pieces were not big, they were not small and scrawny either.
The Kicker wings were done perfectly, they look great, and the flavor is above average. I would be happy to add an order of these to my Domino’s Pizza order anytime. Kudos No. 3.

The Mango Habanero Wings were deliciously sticky, and packed that Habanero heat. Both of the orders of wings were browned nicely, with dark, well done spots. We know for a fact that Domino’s sends the Wings through their chain-driven pizza oven to cook them, and we suspect that they are pre-deep-fried (is that a new term?) and arrive at the stores frozen… ready for the pizza oven.

Oh yes, the thin crust pizza rocks:

Let us know if you add a side of chicken to your next Domino’s Pizza order, and what you think of them. Scroll down farther to leave your thoughts in a Comment!

Enjoy!
~brian

Meanwhile, enjoy the extra pics we took of the chicken parts… yummy!

Have you tried Domino’s New Chicken? I’d love to know what you think.
~enjoy, Brian

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