Hmm, maybe you could leave a string cheese stick out and let it dry some? That might be pretty close. Then you can douse it in some hot flavorless oil or something.
Fairly legitimately this. I've had cheap cheese sticks that are pretty close in consistency to cheap nugs, you could probably get it even closer with some concentrated effort and experimentation. Might not need to do much other than bread it, really. Mozzarella sticks are basically chicken nuggets already, when you think about it.
Only problem with that is chicken tastes like ... chicken. It's probably my least favorite meat. At least by itself; it's tolerable when in a stir fry, or generally fried and covered in other things. But just chicken by itself.... very bland and "meh."
In fairness,
most meat just by itself is pretty bland, and most chicken is intentionally raised and processed to avoid the stuff that adds flavor in a critter's diet. You want flavorful chicken you go find one that's been wandering around in a forest or somethin'.
Think fish is usually described as the most intensely flavorful by its lonesome, and, like, that's probably the heavy metals and stuff talking, y'know?
Anyway, my experience with chicken (turkey, similarly) is it's
really good at taking on other flavors, so in combination with how cheap it is, it's basically my favorite to cook with. It's just kinda' okay on its own, but if you're eating chicken on its own, you done fucked up. Don't do that, season the hell out of it at a minimum.
Best way I've found to cook it is basically pile on seasonings (you can do a bit better with proper marinades, but my current really-good-with-less-effort roughly in order of amount is [curry powder/paprika/black pepper], [rosemary/basil], dash of [cayenne and brown sugar], wet down with lemon juice) and liquid and cook it down to a glaze with the chicken inside it, then roll it around once it's rendered down until the sauce cooks in. Sooooo good.