All right, let’s get real about one of life’s simple joys – chicken tenders. Those crispy, golden bites of pure happiness that make any day better. Whether you’re dunking them in sauces or just popping them like popcorn, there’s no denying the universal love for these little nuggets of deliciousness.
For details on cooking Chicken Tenders in general to keep them moist, check out our blog post.
Healthier Chicken Nuggets
Nutritional Information
Let’s start with the basics. A standard serving of unbreaded chicken tenders (about 2-3 pieces) typically contains around 120-180 calories, making them an excellent choice for lean protein. However, the exact nutritional content can vary based on the size of the tenders, the cooking method and any added ingredients. To keep things on the healthier side, we opted for baking instead of frying.
Breading Methods
There a couple of ways to “bread” food, from a light dusting of flour (gluten free or regular) or corn starch. Another option is tempura batter (light and airy), or crunchy nuggets, and of course extra crispified. All of these involve some sort of flour or powder to add a crunch to the chicken. Most also involve eggs and sometimes milk, mayonnaise (yes) or mustard in the “batter”.
In our recipe, we are creating a batter using greek yogurt, eggs and flour (gluten free works just fine here). Bumping up the protein without bumping up the fat too much.
Fry or Bake
We are opting to bake these chicken tenders, making them lower in overall fat than deep frying.
Dipping Sauce
Of course we love to sauce; there are a couple of ways to go. BBQ Sauce is amazing instead of ketchup (no, please).
In this recipe, we opted for creamy and super easy dipping sauces with the same Sweet Heat seasoning we used for the tenders.
Notes
I worked on this several times to get the right crunch without too heavy of a coating. It's crunchy and delicious. We know you will love it.
Ingredients
- 12 chicken tenders, patted dry
Batter
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup greek yogurt
- 1/2 tsp Sweet Heat seasoning
- 1/4 flour
Crunch
- 1-2 cups of unseasoned panko bread crumbs (gluten free version is great)
- 1/4 tsp Sweet Heat seasoning
Dipping sauces
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup greek yogurt
- 1/2 tsp Sweet Heat seasoning
- 1 cup {Sauce Goddess Sweet & Spicy Cayenne sauce|https://saucegoddess.com/shop/sweet-spicy-sauce/]
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Toast the bread crumbs on the stovetop in a large fry pan on low heat until the color changes slightly.
- Place in a pie plate or flat bowl and set aside to cool.
- Crack 2 eggs a large mixing bowl.
- Whisk well to combine.
- Add greek yogurt and seasoning.
- Whisk well to combine.
- Add chicken and flour and combine all. The mixture will be thick.
Set up your "breading station"
- Place sheet pan with cooling rack on top. If you don't have a cooling rack, just use the baking sheet directly.
- Remove a single chicken tender from the egg batter and place it in the pan with the bread crumbs.
- Flip it over to coat both sides and place it in the sheet pan.
- Continue until all tenders are coated.
Cooking
- Bake for 20 minutes for small tenders and 25 minutes for larger ones. See notes on "floppy test".
The Sauces
- While the tenders are baking, make the sauce.
- Sauce 1-Mix yogurt mayonnaise and seasoning.
- Sauce 2-Pour 1 cup of Sweet & Spicy into a bowl.
Leftovers
Keeping the crunch is not easy with leftover tenders, or anything crunchy for that matter. If you actually have any leftovers, we recommend reheating these in a fry pan. Oil is not needed, just heat them that way to re-crunchify the coating after their nap in the fridge.
