Abstract: To realize the high-value utilization of wheat shorts, this study investigated their application in coating flour.Twenty categories of wheat shorts were selected to replace wheat flour for the production of coating flour preparation. The contents of moisture, protein, crude fat, dietary fiber, ash, and protein composition were measured. Using chicken nuggets as a model to analyze the quality indicators of coated and fried chicken. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to identify the key indicators for evaluating the quality of coating flour, followed by cluster analysis (CA) to classify the samples of wheat shorts. The results showed that compared with commercially coating flour, the coating flour made primarily from wheat shorts exhibiting better water retention, which significantly improved hardness, elasticity, and chewiness of the fried chicken, and reduced the fat content of the chicken nuggets. PCA revealed that the quality of coating flour reflected by 14 indicators could be represented by 6 principal components (with a cumulative contribution rate of 84.78%). According to the comprehensive evaluation function, the top 3 samples ranked were M, N, and K, which represent the samples that are suitable to be used in the production of the coating flour. CA classified the wheat shorts samples into 6 categories, with the number of samples in each category being 3, 3, 8, 4, 1, and 1, respectively. The 3 samples selected by PCA were distributed in two adjacent categories, featuring moderate dietary fiber content, higher protein content, and high coating yield. The findings showed a high consistency between PCA and CA results, suggesting that wheat shorts with moderate dietary fiber and higher protein content are particularly suitable for coating flour production.