Healthy Baked Chicken Tenders
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Baked Chicken Tenders are the perfect easy dinner. Made with only a few simple ingredients they’re secretly healthy, crispy & delicious!
If you love chicken tenders but are looking for a lighter option, these baked chicken tenders are for you! Baked instead of fried, but they’re still crunchy and delicious.
Pair them with our crispy baked french fries and your favorite condiments for a nostalgic weeknight dinner.
Tyler’s Tips for Crispy Baked Chicken Tenders
- Form an assembly line with flour, egg, breadcrumbs to help make this process go smoothly.
- Use separate utensils at each coating stage to give you the cleanest breading and to help reduce clumping.
- If you can’t find chicken tenders, you can use chicken breasts and cut them into strips, and gently tenderize them to replicate the look and texture of chicken tenderloins.
Ingredients
Substitutions
Chicken Tenders: We recommend making this recipe with chicken tenders, but chicken breasts can also work. Cut boneless, skinless chicken breasts into strips and pound gently with a meat mallet to mimic chicken tender shapes.
Gluten Free: I have not tried making this recipe gluten free. I think it might work if you used Gluten Free 1:1 flour in place of whole wheat flour and gluten free bread crumbs, but I can’t be sure without testing it.
Bread Crumbs: You can make this with regular white breadcrumbs or panko bread crumbs, both will work!
Eggs: You need to use eggs for this recipe. Flax eggs will not work.
Parmesan Cheese: You can use any kind of grated cheese – freshly grated off a block, or pre-grated. I haven’t tried this with dairy free parmesan cheese so I’m not sure how that will work.
Spices: You can add parsley, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper or really any spices you like depending on your tastes!
Can you make these in the air fryer? I don’t have an air fryer, but many other people have made these in their air fryers and enjoyed them! I’d recommend following your air fryers conversion chart and trying them out!
How to Make Baked Chicken Tenders
- Dip the tenders in whole wheat flour in a shallow dish, coating evenly. Shake off any excess.
- Immediately dip into a beaten egg mixture, coating well. Shake off any excess.
- Immediately dip into a breadcrumb, parmesan cheese, and spices mixture. Coat on both sides, gently patting down to ensure it sticks well.
- Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet sprayed with oil. Bake at 425° for 15 minutes, flip, and bake for another 15 minutes until browned and crispy.
- If you want extra crispiness, turn the oven up to the broil setting and broil the chicken tenders for an extra minute. Make sure to keep an eye on them so they don’t burn! Enjoy!
Chicken needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 165°. We recommend baking chicken tenders at 425° for 30 minutes. This fully cooks the chicken and results in a crispy exterior.
Storage
Storage: You can store cooked baked chicken tenders in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Freezing: You can freeze these chicken tenders. Lay them on a parchment lined baking sheet and place them in the freezer. When they’re frozen completely, place them in a ziploc bag. THey’ll last in the freezer for 2 months. When you want to reheat them, place them in the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes until thawed and crispy. Make sure to freeze them after you have cooked them!
Reheating: To reheat your leftovers, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400 and heat for 5-10 minutes until edges are crispy.
I would not recommend microwaving these chicken tenders. They can get soggy and do not taste as good!
Serving Suggestions
- Fries: Healthy Baked French Fries are a must make with these chicken tenders!
- Dipping: You can dip these in ketchup or mustard. These baked chicken tender are also delicious dipped in the buffalo sauce in this recipe.
- On a salad: This Strawberry Avocado Goat Cheese Salad is one of my favorites
- Roasted Veggies: Garlic Roasted Brussels Sprouts or Green Beans Almondine go great with these chicken tenders!
- Pasta Salad: We love this with our Caprese Pasta Salad!
- With Healthy Mac and Cheese or Roasted Carrots
Sauces to try with Baked Chicken Tenders
Any sauce goes well with these chicken tenders! We love:
Other Healthy Chicken Recipes
We love cooking with chicken because it’s so versatile! Here are some of our other favorite healthy chicken recipes!
Healthy Baked Chicken Tenders
Ingredients
Chicken:
- 1 lb chicken tenderloins
- ½ cup whole wheat flour
- 2 large eggs
Breading:
- ¾ cup unseasoned whole wheat bread crumbs
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Set out 3 medium shallow bowls.
- In the first bowl add whole wheat flour.
- In the second bowl, crack and whisk eggs.
- In the third bowl mix together breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, pepper, salt, dried basil and dried parsley.
- Form an assembly line of flour, egg and breadcrumbs.
- Dip the chicken tenders in whole wheat flour, coating evenly on all sides. Shake off any excess flour.
- Immediately dip the chicken into the egg mixture, coating well on both sides. Shake off any excess egg.
- Immediately dip the chicken into the breading mixture. Coat the chicken on both sides, gently patting down on the chicken to make sure the breading sticks well.
- Place the chicken tenders on a parchment lined baking sheet sprayed with olive oil.. Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes, then flip and bake for an additional 15 minutes until the outside of the chicken is browned and crispy.
- If you want extra crispiness, turn the oven up to the broil setting and broil the chicken tenders for an extra minute. Make sure to keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.
- Serve with crunchy baked french fries, your favorite dipping sauce, and enjoy!
We used extra crispy gluten free bread crumbs and they were delicious! So good!
These were very dry and they didn’t crisp.
I’m a little confused by this comment.. if you thought they were dry… was the outside not dry and crispy? Sorry you felt this way!
The chicken tenders were excellent. Very easy to make.
Hello, is there anything I can do if I do not have any coconut flakes? Thanks
Hi Deb, I’m sorry but I haven’t tried it without the coconut so I can’t offer a substitution!
In your description you say ‘combination of almond flour, coconut flour, and coconut flakes’ but your ingredient list says almond meal. Which is it? Sounds good, and looking forward to trying out. Thanks!
Almond flour and almond meal are the same thing! The recipe says almond flour as does the instructions 🙂 Hope this helps!
These turned out so yummy! I had to sub almond flour and oat flour in because a quarantine is a quarantine! Haha! For real these were great and fairly easy to make! Will be making again soon! Thank you!!!
I’m so glad you liked them Amy! Glad the substitutions worked!
Yay!! Tomorrow’s lunch is going to be exciting with this recipe.
Hope you love them!!
This is one of my favorite resides! It’s easy and delicious, and the chicken always turns out perfectly crispy. Would highly recommend!
Thank you so much, Marlena! So glad you like the recipe!
The recipes are amazing and so easy to make.
Thank you so much, Amanda – I really appreciate it!
These come together so fast and are super satisfying! All the flavor of a great chicken tender without all the greasy, hard breading you find with store bought. I love to pair mine with honey mustard. Thanks, Liz!
So glad you liked them, Lauren! Honey mustard + buffalo sauce are my fav things to pair them with too!
Love so many of your recipes! This is an easy and healthy chicken tenders recipe that I use for my boys. Did feel like you need to add some salt.
So glad you like them, Cynthia! I don’t have salt in the recipe but do have a note that you can add salt/pepper to them!
Loved these – quick and easy for meal prepping. Keep the recipes coming !
So glad you liked them, Mary Ann!! They are great for meal prep!
Favorite recipe on the site! I’m a junior in college and for the first time have my own kitchen. I meal prep weekly and try my best to eat as healthy as possible. In the past 2 months I have made these nearly every week. So easy, so delicious, and I have yet to get sick on them.
I’m so glad you like them, Emma!! They’re seriously one of my favorite things to make too and I never get sick of them!!
Hello, just made these and they turned out excellent. Question: We had to add salt to the end product. How much do you add up front also while it is moist at the middle it is a bit a dry on the ends . Any recommendations? Thank you for the recipe.
Hi Margaret-This recipe doesn’t have salt. If you wanted to add some you would need to test and see what works for your tastebuds. Maybe 1/4 teaspoon? I would add it to the batter with the flours. I’m not sure why the tenders would be coming out dry. Maybe check them a few minutes before they’re supposed to come out of the oven and take them out a little earlier. Everyones oven is a bit different!
Hello! I am also looking to replace chicken nuggets for my daycare kids. Do these work to freeze ahead of time, and then just bake like you would a chicken nugget?
Hi AshleyRae- I’m so sorry but I have never frozen these before. We always eat them right out of the oven! I have reheated them in the toaster oven and them come out great, but that was from the refrigerator and not the freezer. If you try freezing them let me know!
Any recipe for the potatoe wedges?
Yes! It’s linked multiple times in the post. Those are my Healthy Baked French Fries: https://thecleaneatingcouple.com/healthy-baked-french-fries/
These look amazing – I’m looking for a replacement for chicken nuggets for my children as I do worry about what is inside these sorts of meals. Is the chicken moist inside the coating as my one worry is that they might be a bit dry? Also do you make your own ketchup or is there a good premade one that is ‘clean’? thanks 🙂
Hi Kate – I think your kids will love these! They’re definitely not dry in the middle at all! We rarely eat ketchup so I don’t make my own, but there are lots of recipes online if you want to make it! This is Tessemae’s Ketchup that I bought at the store!