Walnut crusted chicken tenders with “honey mustard” dipping sauce
Yield: 12
Ingredients
For the tenders:
- 2 ½ cups of raw walnuts
- ¼ cup of nutritional yeast
- 1 ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 12 chicken tenders (or 1 ½ lbs chicken cutlets, cut into even-sized strips)
- Avocado spray oil for baking
“Honey Mustard” Dipping Sauce:
- ¼ cup of dark maple syrup
- ¼ cup of dijon mustard
- 1 large clove of garlic, minced into a paste
- Pinch of sea salt
Notes
Hayley & Jess' Tip:
We love these! They are a healthy and delicious alternative to chicken strips or chicken nuggets. If there’s a nut allergy, you can use gluten-free breadcrumbs, regular breadcrumbs, and/or shredded coconut (if you like the taste of coconut) instead of walnuts!
Kid Tip:
For the breading, let your child dump the walnuts, nutritional yeast, dried spices, and salt into the food processor and mix the ingredients for the sauce.
For babies under 1 year who are eating solids, omit the salt and "honey mustard" dipping sauce. It's safest to serve these to babies ~9 months and older in small finely shredded or sliced pieces. Instructions
For “Honey Mustard” Dipping Sauce:
- Mix all ingredients for dipping sauce in a small bowl then set aside.
For The Tenders:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees and spread walnuts onto a baking sheet. Roast walnuts for 5 minutes or until you can smell them. Let cool.
- Place roasted walnuts in a food processor and grind for about 30 seconds until you reach a breadcrumb-like consistency. (Be careful not to over-grind or you’ll end up with walnut butter.)
- Mix nutritional yeast, dried spices, and salt into the ground walnuts.
- Coat chicken tenders in the walnut mixture and then arrange them evenly on a cooling rack set into a cooking sheet (making sure the chicken tenders don’t touch each other so they cook evenly).
- Spray lightly with avocado oil then bake for 12 minutes at 425 degrees. Turn the broiler on and broil for about 5 minutes until breading is lightly browned and chicken is cooked through.
- Serve with maple “honey mustard” on the side.