Last month when I wrote about making Cheap & Not-Crappy Buffalo Strips at Home, I threw some punches in the direction of other grocery store buffalo chicken items. In particular, I called T.G.I. Fridays frozen wings “terrible”.

But have I actually ever had T.G.I. Friday’s frozen wings? I couldn’t remember. And Will Gordon, my favorite booze writer on the internet, had some not-terrible things to say about them in his frozen wing roundup for Serious Eats. As I try to be a chicken wing reviewer of honesty and integrity, this thought made me uncomfortable. I can’t just going around bashing foods I’ve never eaten. So Saturday, with my wife out of town and my self respect dwindling, I decided it was time to right this wrong and give these wings the review they probably don’t deserve.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I’ve been to a T.G.I. Fridays, and to be honest I’m not sure I could tell you where one was located in St. Louis. But that’s neither here nor there. We’re not here to talk about T.G.I. Fridays or the wings they serve at their chain restaurants. Instead, we’re talking about this:

This package, which cost me $3.50, promises 9 ounces of breaded chicken wing sections with a spicy sauce packet. Yummy! Let’s take a look inside. The wings come in a standard-issue plastic bag, and the sauce packet is also about what you’d expect. In the image below, I’m following the instructions and running it under hot water to thaw it.

The instructions here are pretty straight forward. Preheat your oven to 450º. Put the chicken in on a baking sheet on the center rack of the oven. Bake for 10 minutes on each side. Let chicken sit for 1-2 minutes before tossing in sauce. That’s what I did. Here’s a before/after shot of the wings going into and out of the oven.

As you can see, they got nice and golden and looked pretty crisp. The wings are a nice small size (always a win for me!) and I hesitate to say that I was feeling a bit optimistic that these might not be terrible. Then I opened the sauce packet.

The packaging promises me that I can customize my wing experience from “Mild to Wild” depending on how much of the 2 oz sauce packet I use, or if I toss the wings in it, or dip them instead. Unfortunately, there is no amount of sauce that you could consume that would allow an experience even approximating “wild”.

When I cut the sauce packet open, the first smell was not spice, but some kind of artificial butter. This smell is why I stay away from the Frank’s Red Hot Wings Sauce. Looking at the packaging for both of them, the ingredients are nearly identical. But I tossed the wings in it anyway!

After the toss, I put the wings on a plate, and I ate them. The first thing I noticed is how slippery they were. Slippery isn’t a word I’ve used in a wing review before (I checked), and it isn’t one I hope to use again. I’m blaming the fake butter. There was also no spiciness, the wings weren’t as crispy as they looked, and everything was just pretty much meh.

On the upside, I didn’t get any bites of gristly chicken, and while the chicken was a bit dry, it wasn’t too bad, and maybe I could cook it for less time. But I won’t be cooking these wings for less time, or for any amount of time ever again. Because these wings aren’t good and I could better spend my $3.50 almost anywhere else. These wings will not satisfy your buffalo chicken cravings and this 9 oz portion was not filling enough for a meal. You’d be better and fuller off and spend less time and money following my other recipe. Of course, I ate them anyway.