Crispy Chicken Tenders

It's the crunch for me...

I say all the time that I’m not that great at frying chicken, but chicken tenders are a whole different thing. Chicken breasts are so much more forgiving than a leg and thigh and cook super quickly. Over the last year, I tried something new with my standard chicken tender and I have never looked back.

 I cannot even count the number of times I have made tenders and the techniques used. Panko fried, single breaded, double breaded, egg white and corn starch, seltzer water, you name it. Over the years panko had become my favorite because of the insane crunch level you get. And due to the fact that panko browns so fast, you end up with really juicy chicken that never gets an opportunity to be overcooked. While on the other hand, double-dipping in flour, your chicken might dry out while you are waiting on it to get a nice color; flour just takes much longer. So I never really paid chicken tender recipes much attention because my panko recipe was solid.

 The Problem is, that panko isn’t always readily available at the grocery store when I’m ready for it. Over the lockdown, I saw on Instagram someone dips the chicken tender in a batter and then the flour and I was like…hmmm, let me try that. I tweaked my recipe to use a flour batter instead and it was absolutely fabulous. I tried it at least four more times after to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke before deciding to share the recipe.

 Now I know that there are a million and one chicken tender recipes out there, and they are mostly all good, but yall never had a greedy girl chicken tender. So my recipe has entered the chat. It’s very flavorful, I mean VERY flavorful. Crunchy, the meat is juicy its just an overall good recipe to have under your belt. I dipped them in my everything sauce, they would also make a fab chicken sandwich!

 

Ingredients (printable recipe)
 
Oil for frying
For The brine
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
¼ cup Salt
¼ cup sugar
Water to cover the chicken
Season mix
2 tablespoon allspice ground
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon ground sage
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 tablespoon onion powder
2 tablespoon mushroom umami powder
1 tablespoon pink sea salt
2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons paprika
For the wet batter
1 1/3 cup water
1 cup flour
For the dry batter
1 cup flour
2 tablespoon corn starch

 

Greedy Tips:

• You can skip the brine and just season the tenders with the seasoning mix the night before. You will still end up with flavorful chicken. My chicken was frozen, so the brine helped to thaw my chicken as well as season it at the same time.
• The cornstarch is optional; however, it just adds a lightness to the breading as flour can sometimes take a bit longer to brown
• Deep frying would also be a better option, shallow frying tends to flatten out the crunchy exterior as the weight of the chicken rests on it.

 

Directions

1. Make the brine of salt sugar and water and place the frozen or thawed chicken breast in the water. Leave thawed breast in the brine for 45 minutes to an hour and leave frozen chicken breast in the water until defrosted.
2. Rinse and pat dry the chicken and cut each chicken breast into 4-6 strips depending on the thickness of the chicken tender you want
3. In a bowl combine all the seasoning mix ingredients
4. Get three containers, one with chicken and two with flour
5. Divide the seasoning mix into three parts and season the chicken breast with 1/3 of it. Mix thoroughly
6. Add 1/3 of the seasoning mix and 2 tablespoons cornstarch to one bowl of flour and stir to combine
7. Add the remaining 1/3 of the seasoning mix to the last bowl of flour along with water and whisk until you get a slightly runny pancake batter-looking mixture.
8. Add the seasoned chicken to the wet batter and stir making sure to coat all the chicken in the batter
9. Heat the oil until its 350F
10. Place the battered chicken tenders into the seasoned flour and gently massage the flour into the chicken giving it a shake, and repeating, you can also spritz with water to create the “flakes” on the outside
11. Place in the hot oil either deep fry until golden brown or shallow fry flipping to cook both sides.
12. Chicken breasts cook fairly quickly so in about 8 minutes they should be done.
13. Set aside on a cooling rack and serve with your fav dipping sauce

Xoxo Greedygirl