Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Chicken tenders (or fingers, take your pick) are a kid (and adult) favorite, at least at our house. As with all of our favorite foods, I’ve found healthier alternatives to the traditional versions as we’ve adopted a healthier diet.
Can Chicken Tenders Be a Health Food?
The first step to making fried chicken healthier is to use healthier chicken. I wrote extensively about the importance of choosing excellent protein sources in this post. The gist of it is, if the animals that you’re eating are healthy, your food will be healthier too. Chicken is an important source of B vitamins, minerals, and iron. Since I don’t have a great local source I usually order mine from Wellness Meats or Butcher Box.
The second step is to use healthier breading ingredients. Since our family usually avoids most grain products, I use seasoned almond flour to coat the chicken for these chicken fingers. It gives the chicken a nice nutty flavor, without sacrificing the crispiness essential to fried chicken.
The third step is to use a healthy fat source for frying. I prefer not to use peanut oil or canola oil, so I usually use tallow (rendered beef fat) or coconut oil. Both contain healthy fats and have a high smoke point, making them excellent for frying.
All the Ways to Enjoy Homemade Chicken Tenders
Most obviously, chicken fingers are meant to be dunked in a delicious sauce and eaten just like that. My family’s favorite dipping sauce is homemade honey mustard. But since I make a lot of my own condiments, we’ve tried a lot of different combinations and enjoyed them all. Try:
You really can’t go wrong!
The other excellent way to enjoy chicken tenders is chopped up and tossed on top of a salad. Using them in a salad lets me combine the veggies and protein all in one dish, so I don’t have to worry about cooking separate sides.
I specifically designed my Spring Salad with Berries to be topped with homemade chicken strips and drizzled with honey mustard dressing. It’s pretty delicious.
If your family loves traditional chicken fingers, give this healthier version a try! I promise, it’s easy and delicious and you won’t be disappointed.
Healthy Chicken Tenders Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 medium chicken breasts
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp water
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 2 cups tallow (or coconut oil, for frying)
- honey mustard (for serving, optional)
Instructions
- Turn the oven on warm and place a baking sheet inside it.
- Cut the chicken into strips or nuggets.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and water.
- Add the chicken strips, mix well, and set aside.
- In another bowl, mix together the almond flour, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
- Heat the tallow or coconut oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
- Once the oil is hot, remove the chicken from the egg mixture and dredge it in the almond flour mixture.
- Place the chicken in a single layer in the pan of heated oil.
- Cook 3-4 minutes per side or until golden brown and cooked through.
- Remove from pan and place on the warm baking sheet in the oven while additional batches are cooking.
- Continue cooking chicken until it is all done.
- Once everything is cooked, sprinkle with additional salt and pepper and serve with honey mustard sauce.
Notes
Nutrition
Like this recipe? Check out my new cookbook, or get all my recipes (over 500!) in a personalized weekly meal planner here!
Ever made a healthy version of chicken tenders? Share below!
Health Benefits of Essential Oils
Hi! Could I use ghee instead of coconut oil?
Absolutely- sounds great!
Instead of cornstarch, I use arrowroot. Cornstarch is derived from corn, which is GMO and a carb. I just mix the flour and arrowroot together. Thanks for the tip of dipping the chicken in arrowroot first. I use this for round steak too.
These were delicious; a big hit with my kids. Thank you for this recipe! It’s a keeper!
This looks a recipe that would go over well at my house. However, my son is allergic to eggs, what could I possible substitute for that?
The eggs help the (for lack of a better word) breading to stick to the chicken. Maybe some milk?
Made these tonite and my teenage son liked (not loved) them (he’s a picky eater so I was glad). The almond flour did stick to the chicken to create a nice crust and chicken was juicy. But the smell of fried oil permeated the house, and I didn’t care for that. Plus making these is inherently messy: 1 dish for eggs, 1 dish fir crumb mixture, 1 dish for breaded chicken, 1 dish lined with paper towels to drain cooked chicken and of course the pan I fried it in. This is no fault of the recipe… I should’ve thought twice about it is all. The smell of fried oil in the house is the deal breaker. Cocunut oil is on the fragrant side so it’s not like it smelt ‘bad’ but it was a heavy smell. Hard to explain. I will continue to scope out this website though because I made the lettuce tacos and my son loved those.
Have you made these with coconut flakes? I’ve been thinking about trying coconut crusted chicken, and was curious if you have experience making something like that.
For those with nut allergies, millet flour works great and is much better on chicken than coconut flour! 🙂 hope that’s helpful!
In your opinion, how much should adults and children be consuming almond flour if we are baking and cooking with it? I have read many negative effects of AF after I just purchased 5lbs of it. My husband does not eat many things and he is only used to eating carbs for breakfast and lunch.
Thanks in advanced.
This is amazing! I’ve used it in several different recipes, including chicken Parmesan and it was so good 🙂
Made these tonight and they were SO good! I had to make something really good for my hubby because I did the beef and zucchini dish last night and he is NOT a vegetable lover. I figured I should go easy on him today:)