Italian Paleo Chicken Fingers
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These healthy, kid-friendly Italian Paleo Chicken Fingers are grain free, gluten free, dairy free and sugar-free. Lightly breaded and pan fried in coconut oil to a golden brown.
Italian Paleo Chicken Fingers
I’m super excited about this little recipe I’m sharing with you today. If your family is anything like ours, you are busy. Running to soccer practices, cross country practices, ballet, piano…by the time dinner comes and it’s nearing time to plop down at the table, I like something fast. And healthy. And easy. And tasty… my dinner has to be good! What makes a dinnertime recipe really stand out is when I see smiles on my kids’ faces (and my hubby’s, too!) and statements of “Now THIS is GOOD!”. These Paleo Italian Chicken Fingers hit every single one of those requirements.
What Chicken to Use for Chicken Fingers
To make these best paleo chicken tenders quick to cook, I used the chicken breast tenderloins that are already trimmed and ready. I know I’m not the only one out there that isn’t a huge fan of handling raw chicken. The fact that this comes trimmed and ready to cook is genius!
Breading for Homemade Chicken Fingers
To make this, you’ll dip each chicken tenderloin in egg first, and then in a mixture of almond flour, tapioca starch, Italian seasoning, garlic, salt and pepper. Then you place it in hot coconut oil and let them pan fry for about 5-6 minutes on each side. This is so easy, friends. There’s no real way you can mess this one up.
The flavor you end up with? Out of this world, finger-lickin’ good. I served this to my family two days in a row. Once we ate the Italian Paleo Chicken Fingers on their own. The kids dipped theirs in honey mustard or buffalo sauce. The second day we served it with spaghetti sauce over spaghetti squash: it’s your very own paleo chicken parmigiana!
Crispy Chicken Fingers
I loved how crispy this chicken turned out. The key to getting this chicken crispy is to heat the coconut oil for about 5 minutes before placing the chicken in. Gently place the chicken in and let it sizzle. You’ll get a beautiful golden brown color. Because these chicken fingers have a light, gluten free “breading”, that crispy coating may come off if you are not careful. We used a spatula (instead of a fork) to turn the chicken fingers and remove them from the pan when they were done. Our crispy coating stayed perfectly on the chicken.
Your family is going to love this healthy recipe. Perfect for game day, birthdays or any day!
Italian Paleo Chicken Fingers
These healthy, kid-friendly Italian Paleo Chicken Fingers are grain free, gluten free, dairy-free and sugar-free Lightly breaded and pan fried in coconut oil to a golden brown.
Servings 8
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 12 minutes
Total Time 22 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless skinless Chicken Tenderloins
- 1 cup almond flour
- 3 tablespoons tapioca starch
- 11/2 teaspoons garlic salt
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 large eggs whisked
- 1/3 cup coconut oil for frying
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
Instructions
- Heat ¼ cup coconut oil in a skillet over medium-high heat for 5 minutes.
- While the oil is heating, prepare the chicken. Place almond flour, tapioca starch, garlic salt, salt, Italian seasoning and pepper in a bowl and mix.
- Put the whisked eggs in a separate bowl.
- Dip each chicken tenderloin into the egg and then coat each with the almond flour mixture.
- Place the prepared chicken into the hot oil and fry it for 5 minutes. Once the first side is browned, turn the chicken and fry the other side for another 5 minutes, or until the chicken is golden brown and shows no pink in the middle.
- During the last minute of frying, sprinkle paprika over the chicken.
- Serve with your favorite dipping sauce or with spaghetti sauce over spaghetti squash.
Video
Nutrition
Calories: 316kcal | Carbohydrates: 6g | Protein: 28g | Fat: 20g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Cholesterol: 119mg | Sodium: 2038mg | Potassium: 443mg | Fiber: 1g | Vitamin A: 170IU | Vitamin C: 1.3mg | Calcium: 50mg | Iron: 1.4mg
For those that can’t have egg… I dipped in avocado oil before “breading” and they came out amazing!
My go to recipe for chicken tenders! Delicious!
My entire family loved this (7 and 8 year old and my husband)! The chicken was moist and the breading was crispy. This will be added to our favorites!
Is the nutrition information you posted for 1 tender?
Great recipe! Easy to make!
This recipe is now part of our regular meal rotation. Question though: Is it possible to bake these instead?
Loved it. Thanks for posting this recipe.
These are awesome! I’m on the elimination diet do to hypothyroid and hashimoto’s so I came across this. Turned out great. I couldn’t use the egg so first time using the chia seeds in water and turned out nice and crunchy. I also used chicken that was cut up for a stir fry. It made for a great little snack!! Thanks!!!
I’m not sure if I can find spaghetti squash where I live, but I will definitely make the chicken fingers and serve them with a mint lemon sauce and a simple salad. The chicken looks so crispy.
We made these tonight and they were EXCELLENT! My husband loves chicken fingers and I’ve never been able to get him to try a GF alternative. He said he’s surely eat these again. We served it with some marinara sauce and qouina
This was soooo good. We didn’t have almond flour so we combined 1 cup tapioca starch and 1 cup coconut flour instead. Thank you for this amazing recipe!
If I bake these instead of doing stove top, will they still come out crispy?
These are great! My family of four all liked these (a monumental achievement)! I did not tell them these are paleo and more healthful than our standard chicken fingers because they would suddenly decide they weren’t so great if they knew. It was awesome to serve something everyone liked and I can feel good about!
This was so good. And so easy to make! Everyone loved it and asked for seconds. Even my picky eaters. Thank you so much for sharing such a great recipe. One that will definitely be a part of our weekly menu for now on. My favorite part was that the flour mix crisped perfectly and didn’t fall off the chicken. Just great!
Entire family loved them!!! Thank you for a simple recipe