Fam, hey. If you’ve been to the site before, you’ve probably noticed that I have a chicken tender obsession. It’s my favorite food and I crave them every week. So what does one do when dieting, but also needing to eat chicken tenders to survive? Make a healthy, yet delicious spinoff.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- Four fresh chicken tenders
- One egg or 1/4 cup egg whites
- Two bags of your preferred flavor of Quest protein chips, I rolled with chili lime this time
To prep your work station, pour a quarter-cup of egg whites into a bowl or whisk an egg in a bowl for your egg wash. Crush the chips using your hands or a rolling pin and pour them into some sort of container or bowl to bread the chicken in.
**DISCLAIMER: I typically eat half of one of the bags of chips prior to crushing them to ensure none are wasted.
A lot of the recipes for homemade breaded chicken that I’ve seen online call for a layer of flour prior to the egg wash, but I skipped the flour this time around and liked how they turned out more. So we’re skipping the flour.
To get the tenders ready for the oven or air fryer, season them with salt and pepper, dip them in the egg wash, shake off the excess, then coat them in the crushed chips breading.
For my method, the air-fryer method, coat your preheated air fryer basket with nonstick spray and place the breaded tenders in a single layer. Air fry at 375 degrees for 16 minutes. Remove the strips, immediately hit them with a dash of salt and let them sit for about three minutes before eating.
For this particular batch, I preheated my air fryer for two minutes while I breaded the tenders and it seemed to make a difference for the end product.
I haven’t done these in the oven, but if I were to, I’d add them to a greased baking sheet and bake them at 425 for around 20 minutes. If you wanna get really frisky, you could probably knock that bake time down by three to five minutes and broil them for three to five minutes for some extra crunch. AGAIN, I haven’t done that method, so you might want to double check some online recipes for that time and temperature.
The final step is to pair with your favorite dipping sauce and enjoy. It’s no Raising Cane’s, but they taste like they shouldn’t be this healthy.
The tenders come out to about 500 calories, nine grams of carbs and a WHOPPING 96 grams of protein. It’s one of my favorite homemade meals and a major key to keeping my diet on track. These won’t win any fried chicken awards, but they do a great job of scratching the fried-food itch while keeping the calories low.
That’s all I’ve got. Thank you for tuning in and let me know if you make these! I always welcome community feedback with open arms. Much love and take care.
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