A perfectly crispy fried chicken tender, and a fun and flavorful dipping sauce! This chicken is so good you will be licking your fingers and considering a move to the South so you can acceptably eat it for breakfast.
The key to really good fried chicken is the double dip. In real life we don’t love the double dippers. No one wants saliva in the dip or dressing. But with fried chicken you want to double dip…into your eggs and coating that is. First dip in your egg batter, then your flour/coating, then back in the egg batter, then back into the coating.
For these perfectly crispy tenders I first dipped in the egg and buttermilk mix. Then I dipped in flour. Then I dipped back into egg and buttermilk. Then I dipped into Panko! And this combo created this delightful crunch on the exterior, and a tender, juicy interior! Perfection as far as I am concerned.
Fried Chicken Tenders with Spicy Asian BBQ Dipping Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 lbs chicken breast cut into tenders
- Oil for frying
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 2-3 cups Panko
Egg Batter
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
Spicy Asian BBQ Dipping Sauce
- 1/4 cup apricot preserves
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 Tbs white wine vinegar
- 1 Tbs sesame oil
- 1 Tbs Sriracha
- 1 Tbs minced garlic
- 1/4 small onion peeled
- 1 Tbs sweet chili sauce
- 2 Tbs brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
Instructions
- Cut chicken into tenders
- Whisk together eggs and buttermilk in a medium sized bowl
- In another bowl mix together flour, salt and pepper, and paprika
- In yet another bowl add Panko bread crumbs
- Dip chicken into egg batter, then into flour mixture. Shake off excess flour
- Dip same piece of chicken back into egg batter.
- Then dip chicken, and roll in Panko
- Set aside, do this until all chicken is coated
- In a large pan heat oil on medium heat, you don't want your oil too hot or it will burn the outside of the chicken without cooking the inside, so set your heat to medium, no higher, if the oil starts to smoke at all, turn it down.
- Once the oil is hot, add chicken to the pan.
- Let chicken cook 5-7 minutes, then flip to other side and cook an additional 5-7 minutes depending on thickness of chicken. Use a meat thermometer or cut into thickest part of chicken to test doneness.
- Remove from oil, and serve hot with dipping sauce, salad, fries, or your choice of sides.
Spicy Asian BBQ Sauce
- Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. If you do not want it too spicy, use less Sriracha.
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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The thick, crispy coating keeps all the fluid inside your chicken tender so that it is nice and juicy instead of dried out. It will be amazing. And, if you don’t want a spicy BBQ sauce, skip it, and dip in your favorite BBQ, or eat plain!
I served this with sweet potato fries and a garden fresh salad. It was great! Hope you love it!
angele @shoeboxbegone says
this looks really good – and now I”m hungry! lol thanks for sharing 🙂