Beyond Chicken-Free Grilled Strips: Nutrition & Labelgrade B (79/100)

The short answer

Beyond Chicken-Free Grilled Strips deliver 20g of protein for 120 calories in a 3 oz (85g) serving — 23.5g per 100g, dense enough to sit near plain cooked chicken (31g) and well above any breaded chicken nugget. Two-thirds of the calories come from protein, and there’s zero saturated fat, the one thing the Beyond Burger can’t claim. It earns a B (79/100). The strips are grilled and unbreaded, so this is a lean protein-delivery ingredient — a salad, wrap, and stir-fry component — not a fried-food experience.

Why the B

The grade tells an honest story: this is a near-A protein held to a B by exactly two things. Sodium at 350mg is real — about 15% of a day’s limit in one 3 oz portion, and it climbs fast if you eat the whole bag. Ingredient quality is the other: nothing on the panel is alarming, but a 22-item list anchored by protein isolates is the definition of engineered food, and the titanium-dioxide colorant is the single ingredient most likely to give a shopper pause. Strip those two penalties away and the protein, fat, and sugar scores would put it in A territory.

The number that actually matters: protein per calorie

The headline here isn’t the 20g — plenty of foods hit that. It’s how cheaply, in calories, you get it. Beyond Strips spend 6.0 calories per gram of protein. The breaded chicken nuggets people reach for in the same freezer aisle are nowhere close: Tyson runs about 19 calories per gram (270 cal for 14g of protein), Applegate about 16 (190 cal for 12g). That gap is structural — a nugget is mostly breading and the oil it’s set in, so most of its calories are starch and fat, not protein. Strip the breading away, as Beyond does, and the protein-to-calorie ratio roughly triples.

How it compares to real chicken nuggets

Both products below are graded in our database, so these are verified figures, normalized per 100g:

Beyond grades higher than both, and the table shows why: it’s denser in protein than either, carries no saturated fat where Tyson carries 4.4g, and has zero cholesterol. The one place a nugget can claim a partial win is ingredient simplicity — Applegate’s cleaner, shorter panel actually out-scores Beyond on ingredient quality (B+ vs C+) — but Applegate gives up too much protein density and sits with the breading penalty to catch Beyond on the overall grade.

Where it fits — and where it doesn’t

This is the meatless option to keep on hand for salads, wraps, grain bowls, and stir-fries, where you want shreddable protein that absorbs a sauce and doesn’t drag fat and cholesterol into the dish. It is not trying to be a fried treat, and it won’t fool a chicken purist on texture. The honest caution is sodium: at 350mg a serving, it’s fine as a component but adds up if the strips become a daily staple, so treat the whole bag as three servings, not one. Compared with Beyond’s own Burger — same brand, 20g of protein — the Strips are the leaner formulation, trading the Burger’s coconut-oil “meatiness” (and its saturated fat) for a cleaner fat profile.

Ingredients

Water, soy protein isolate, pea protein isolate, chicken flavor (yeast extract, maltodextrin, natural flavoring, salt, sunflower oil, citric acid), rice flour, expeller-pressed canola oil, soy fiber, carrot fiber, and — at 0.5% or less each — white vinegar, spices, salt, sugar, molasses powder, dipotassium phosphate, titanium dioxide (for color), potassium chloride, and paprika. (Verbatim from the USDA Branded Foods entry, FDC 2031061.)

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Scope: This page applies specifically to Beyond Chicken-Free Grilled Strips · UPC 852629004033. Other sizes, flavors, or formulations may differ.