Why I’m Keeping Nuggets in My Freezer This Year

PHOTO COURTESY ALPHA FOODS/ILLUSTRATION BY MIA COLEMAN
PHOTO COURTESY ALPHA FOODS/ILLUSTRATION BY MIA COLEMAN

It’s 12:42pm on a Tuesday. Fresh off a virtual meeting that ended early, I bound into the kitchen. Yesterday, “lunch” was a few loose pieces of American cheese and an apple. Last week, it was ice cream. In the “before times,” lunch was an actual break — a walk to the salad place, trying a new empanada stand two blocks from the office, splitting a messy sandwich with a coworker. Now, lunch feels like simply more work, on top of the already-blurred lines between “home” and “office.” I sigh into the fridge. 

My husband appears behind me and gently moves me out of the way. He then opens the freezer. Out of the depths, somewhere next to those “green smoothie packs” I naively made in April, he pulls out our solution: frozen nuggets. 

This time, it’s Alpha Foods Chik’n Nuggets, a plant-based frozen option that turns crispy and browned in a mere 13-15 minutes. (Or pop in the microwave if you’re really crunched for time.) It’s options like this — comforting, quick, and plant-based — we’ve come to rely on in a year where everything seems, well, unreliable. Even more convenient, Alpha Foods is celebrating National Nugget Day November 13 by launching their own direct-to-consumer subscription service, and you can get your first month free if you sign up on their landing page. (While quantities last, of course.) With it, you can have chik’n nuggets arrive, seemingly out of thin air, once a month like clockwork. So while National Nugget Day may be just one day, we’re boldly declaring all of 2020 the year of the nugget. Here’s why: 

Nuggets are comfort food in its simplest form 

Baked ziti. Chocolate chip cookies. Warm, brothy soup with lots of noodles. Craving comfort food, especially when the world feels upside down, is pretty par for the course. Pulling off those meals whenever the craving strikes, though, feels downright impossible. Luckily, nuggets (of the chicken or chik’n variety) immediately transport us to our childhood dining tables — especially when served alongside a box of mac ’n cheese or honey mustard sauce. Comfort food like this can help put a smile on your face, too: A study in Psychological Science found that eating foods associated with happy memories can literally help you feel less lonely. 
 

They’ll help you better understand your parents 

When I first started cooking for myself, I tried to ban shortcuts: everything from bottled lemon juice and jars of minced garlic to frozen, prepared foods. In my mind, these weren’t what “real cooks” used, even though they had been staples in my mother’s fridge for decades. So about two weeks into quarantine, when my husband asked for me to add “quick, easy meals” like Alpha Foods Chik’n Nuggets to the grocery list, I felt like I had failed at cooking. I was home more than ever — why hadn’t I stocked our freezer with big batches of soup or carefully baked my own granola?! The answer, dear reader, is that I am human, and a long day at work hits just as hard now, even though the “commute” is only a few feet. On days when I’ve already prepared two meals and just the thought of cutting a single vegetable for dinner feels like a ton of work, I understand why my mom kept these shortcuts stocked. So, I smile, and preheat the oven. 
 

Nuggets can be sustainable

Back in January, I made a resolution to waste less food. It was part of my overall goal to be more sustainable, given that Americans waste an estimated 219 pounds of food per person, every single year. To achieve that, I tried to cut down our takeout habit, use up ingredients I had purchased in creative ways, and ultimately eat less meat. (Facts: if every American swapped just a quarter of their meat consumption for plant-based proteins, we’d reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 82 million metric tons every year.) Frozen, plant-based options like Alpha Foods Chik’n Nuggets save Meatless Monday when I forget to press and marinade the tofu (which happens more than I would like to admit these days). Plus, they have a crispy breading and texture that makes them taste pretty darn close to the “real” thing. Heating these up instead is a small change, but in a year like this one, it’s the simple things we appreciate more than ever.