Let’s Review The Most Popular In-Car Chicken Nugget Holder Systems

If you were to do a focus group of mainstream potential car buyers and ask them the most important qualities they seek in a car, I think you’d likely find their top three demands are CarPlay/Android Auto support, highly absorbent seats, and some effective way to hold chicken nuggets on the dashboard, in easy reach of your hands and mouth.

Did I mention that all of the participants of this focus group were 11-year-old-boys who scored on the lower end of standardized test scores? Maybe I should have mentioned that at the beginning.

Still, even with those caveats, the desire for people to have effective and easy ways to eat chicken nuggets in their cars seems to be surprisingly pervasive, because otherwise why would there be such a rich and varied set of aftermarket solutions to this, I guess, problem?

These nugget-holding and-dipping in-car solutions seem to come in two main forms: print-it-yourself files for people with 3D printers, some plastic filament, and time, and pre-made aftermarket accessories, from either large-scale Chinese retailers or small independent sellers on sites like Etsy.

Let’s take a look at some of these in-car nugget-and-sauce management systems and give some quick reviews, because this is clearly important to the modern motorist who has an insatiable, constant hunger for the chicken equivalent of particle board chunks, dipped in ranch.

Nugget Minimalist Solution

This 3D printable nugget management solution represents what may be considered the baseline of on-dashboard nugget access. It utilizes a smaller type of nugget container, held in place with a quite minimal plastic retaining bracket. The vent-based mounting is very common in the in-car nugget solution world, and with it comes some controversy: if you have the A/C on, you run a real risk of overcooling the nuggets, which is hardly optimal.

Conversely, you can run the heat to keep the nugs hot for a longer period of time, though this can come at the expense of your own personal comfort, depending on the ambient temperature.

So, how to rate this solution? It offers no provision for sauce holding, and it’s limited to one particular shape of nugget container. Perhaps better than nothing, but only just. 3/10. 

Cupholder-Based◌ Solutions

It’s not all vent-mount solutions out there, though. There are several solutions, both available for sale and DIY 3D Printable, that use your car’s cupholders as the mounting point for nugget containment and access. This first solution is fairly compact but does require the use of an actual cup into which the nugs are decanted. There’s also provisions to house two sauce packets.

It’s not a bad solution, reasonably space efficient, though if you car has low-set cupholders you do run the risk of dunking your fingers into some BBQ sauce or cool ranch while attempting to target a nugget. Also, access of nuggets near the bottom of the cup could prove tricky, especially while driving. 6/10. 

An alternative cupholder-based solution is effectively a tray upon which a full box of nuggets and two sauce packets can be held, standing on a sort of pedestal that uses your car’s cupholder as a base. This solution does offer a lot of nugget-enjoyment potential, and makes use of the nuggets’ original packaging, but the overall assembly is quite large, and in the rare occasions it’s not employed for nuggetizing, you have a pretty huge chunk of plastic to deal with.

Maybe you could use it as a little desk? I don’t know, it feels like too much hardware for this particular nugget-access problem. 5/10. 

Full Box, Dash Mount

There’s a number of full-box vent-mounted nugget systems out there, with and without sauce containment options, and from what I can tell, these represent the crispy golden standard of in-car nugget enjoyment. Original packaging can be used for rapid deployment, large numbers and varieties of nugget/chicken strip types can be accommodated, dual sauces can be made available, and a dedicated nugget enjoyer can choose to heat the nugs with the HVAC system’s easily accessible vents.

The only real issue with these is that if you have such a setup in your car, it will immediately peg you as some who is really into chicken nuggets. As in maybe too into chicken nuggets. Like perhaps what sex is for people with sex addiction, chicken nuggets are for you. Is this an image you’re comfortable with? Do you want to be known as the Chicken Nugget Guy/Gal/Ghomever?

Best make your peace with that before diving in on one of these. If you’re okay with it, I think we can rate this setup 8/10. If not, then no point in rating at all, really, car-nugget-eating maybe isn’t for you.

The Choice of Madness

Okay, if you ever get in a car and see someone has a chicken nugget holder in this style, my advice is to run. Sure, this seems like just another decent dash-mounted nugget holder with a sauce container, until you realize that it has cubbies for each individual nug. What sort of depraved bastard is taking nuggets out of a bag or box one by one and tucking them neatly into their own little cubicles?

No one you want anything to do with.

This sort of nugget behavior is deeply unhinged, and if you are looking at this with any sort of approval or desire, I would suggest immediately seeking out a clergyperson to confide in or perhaps turning yourself in preemptively at your closest law enforcement office.

You just can’t be too careful here. 1/10.

This one is just idiotic.

Who asked for this? Why would you do this to yourself? Not only do we have a nugget holder requiring the depraved act of individually tucking nuggets into little plastic compartments like some kind of sicko, but it’s on top of your drink? And when you pick up your cup to take a sip your face is millimeters from your nuggets, depending on your straw length and drinking angle?

Who wants a faceful of nugs? This is an abomination. I’d rather eat them off the floormats. 1/10.

There’s No Way This One Works

Okay, I know the picture there isn’t showing nuggets, but it doesn’t matter, because I don’t believe for a tiny wet second this thing will do anything but launch your food onto your seats and floor in a slightly more dramatic manner than if you just flung them there yourself.

This is from TikTok’s Shop? You can buy crap on TikTok now? This is like sub-Temu level.

Look at that clip; what exactly are you clipping that to inside your car? And are you really under the illusion that shallow tray will remain vertical and stable on that bendy arm for any length of time not measured in microseconds? This is just a tool to dump food on your lap. It’s an act of wild, unbridled, unhinged optimism to even show pictures of this thing with the tray facing upwards, let alone with food on it.

This is just a fever dream, nothing more. It’d be a better use of your $18.27 if you took the money and chewed it like gum. 0/10.

I hope this helps!