Almond Crusted Chicken
These almond crusted chicken strips are crispy, flavorful, and baked right in your oven or air-fryer! The almond breading adds so much amazing flavor and crunch to this easy weeknight dinner.
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Almond Crusted Chicken
- ⏰ Prep Time: 20 minutes
- 🕰️ Cook Time: 12 minutes
- 🍗 Flavor Profile: Juicy chicken breaded with crunchy and flavorful almonds. And dipped into whatever sauce you like (greek yogurt ranch dressing for me!)
- 💪 What Makes It Healthy: 34g protein per serving!
- 🥄 Good For: Easy weeknight dinners, kid meals, stocking the freezer
- ↪️ Make Ahead: Easy to prep ahead and stash either in the fridge for freezer
- 🧡 Difficulty: Not bad at all. You'll learn a three-part dredging technique, which is used a ton in home cooking!
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🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
Hiya! I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorite weeknight dinners-almond crusted chicken strips. These crispy, flavorful baked chicken tenders are a favorite of everyone in my house (regardless of age), and they are so easy to make!
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- So Yummy: Either baked in the oven or air fried until crisp, these chicken strips get tender on the inside and crunchy on the outside.
- Packed Full of Protein: 34 grams of protein per serving! Perfect for fueling growing kids and thriving adults.
- So Easy To Make: We'll do a three-part dredging process which is WAY easier than it sounds and opens you up for other recipes like my toasted ravioli recipe, coconut chicken tenders, and salmon fish sticks recipe.
- Flavor Flexibility: There are so many amazing flavored almonds out there that you can change the flavor just by changing the flavor of the almond!
🐓 The Ingredients You Need
- Almonds: plain, raw almonds work great, but you can also add some more flavor with flavored almonds- smokehouse almonds and habanero bbq almonds are some of my faves in this dish
- Panko breadcrumbs: you'll want panko instead of regular breadcrumbs for a good crunchy coating
- Chicken breast strips: you can cut your own, or you can buy pre-cut chicken tender strips
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Make it gluten-free: swap in gluten-free panko and your favorite all-purpose gluten-free flour-I like Cup4Cup
- Choose flavored almonds: plain almonds are great, but you can also boost the flavor by using flavored almonds such as smokehouse almonds or habanero bbq almonds
- Make it in the air-fryer: air fry one layer of chicken strips at a time in a 375° air fryer for 10-12 minutes, flipping once halfway through cooking time
- Try this with cereal: my OG baked fried chicken recipe uses cornflakes or bran cereal to get a crispy coating in the oven
🍗 How to Make Almond Crusted Chicken
Step 1: Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a baking sheet cooking spray.
Step 2: Whisk together the flour dredge ingredients, set aside
Step 3: Whisk together the egg dredge ingredients, set aside.
Step 4: Using either a food processor or a zip-top bag and a mallet, crush the almonds until into a fine coating. Mix with breadcrumbs and put in a shallow plate.
Step 5: Dredge each chicken piece first in the flour, knocking off any extra.
Step 6: Then dip into the egg dredge, letting excess drip off.
Step 7: Then press into the almond and panko mixture.
Step 8: Place on the prepared baking sheet, spray the chicken with cooking spray and bake for 10-12 minutes.
🙋🏻♀️ Almond Breaded Chicken FAQs
The key is to create a "glue" by dredging each piece of chicken in a dry flour mixture followed by a wet egg mixture. Then immediately press the chicken pieces into small almond pieces.
Almond flour can be a good option for breading chicken, but it does tend to fall off and get gummy sometimes. A better option is to use crushed up whole almonds into small pieces. They give the flavor and texture of almonds without the worry of gummy texture.
👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Double and freeze: this almond breaded chicken freezes beautiful either before baking or after! I always double this recipe and put half in the oven and half in the freezer for an easy dinner later.
- Don't skip the dredge: dredging the strips in the flour then the egg wash creates a "glue" that makes sure the almond pieces stick to the chicken.
- Chop those almonds fine: you're looking for almond pieces that are a little bigger than almond flour, but not so big they fall off of the chicken pieces. You know that chopped nut topping that goes on sundaes? About that size!
- Dip, dip, dip: these tenders are juicy on their own, but who doesn't love a good dip! Try it with greek yogurt ranch dressing, honey mustard salad dressing, dairy free ranch dressing, easy tzatziki sauce, roasted red pepper sauce, or dijonnaise made with my stick blender mayo.
- Serve these with: Southern-style green beans, crispy baked sweet potato fries and creamy coleslaw!
🐔 More Easy Chicken Dinners
If you tried this Almond Crusted Chicken or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
📖 Recipe
Almond Crusted Chicken Strips
Ingredients
- Cooking spray
- ¾ cup raw almonds
- ⅔ cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup water
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1" strips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a baking sheet with Cooking spray, set aside.
- Using either a food processor, or a zip-top bag and a mallet, mash ¾ cup raw almonds until crushed into fine crumbs. Mix with ⅔ cup panko breadcrumbs, and place in a shallow dish or plate. Set aside.
- Whisk together 1 egg and ¼ cup water, place in another shallow dish or plate. Set aside.
- Whisk together ⅓ cup all-purpose flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon black pepper, place in another shallow dish or plate. Set aside.
- Dredge each chicken piece (strips cut from 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts) in the flour mixture, knocking off excess flour, followed by the egg mixture. Finally, press the chicken into the almond mixture, making sure to coat all sides. Place chicken on prepared baking sheet and repeat with remaining pieces.
- Spray the tops of the chicken lightly with cooking spray, and bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the chicken is golden brown, and reaches an internal temperature of 160°F.
Notes
- Try flavored almonds: Feel free to swap in flavored almonds-boost the flavor by using flavored almonds such as smokehouse almonds or habanero bbq almonds
- Make it gluten-free: swap in gluten-free panko and your favorite all-purpose gluten-free flour-I like Cup4Cup
- Make it in the air-fryer: air fry one layer of chicken strips at a time in a 375° air fryer for 10-12 minutes, flipping once halfway through cooking time
- Double and freeze: this almond breaded chicken freezes beautiful either before baking or after! I always double this recipe and put half in the oven and half in the freezer for an easy dinner later.
- Don't skip the dredge: dredging the strips in the flour then the egg wash creates a "glue" that makes sure the almond pieces stick to the chicken.
- Chop those almonds fine: you're looking for almond pieces that are a little bigger than almond flour, but not so big they fall off of the chicken pieces. You know that chopped nut topping that goes on sundaes? About that size!
Nutrition
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These chicken strips have so much flavor! I love making them in the air fryer, but the oven is just as yummy.
I keep meaning to trial almond-crusted chicken strips - brilliant idea to use flavored almonds!
And I bet this could be adapted to any of the Blue Diamond almond flavors. The honey chipotle might be a bit spicy for our little guy (who will be 2 this fall ... though he'll crunch up Altoids and ask for more, so maybe not!), but I bet smokehouse almonds would be a-ma-zing!
Or the wasabi soy sauce almonds, and serve with rice and stir-fried vegetables!
So many possibilities!
Ooh, I love Blue Diamond's flavored almonds, but sadly I never thought to use them as something other than a snack. This looks like a wonderful idea - and so easy too!
These chicken strips look mouth-wateringly delicious! I have never made chicken strips at home and these make me want to ASAP. Also your photos make me want to sink my teeth into the computer screen... just sayin' 🙂
This looks absolutely delicious! I'm going to be trying this soon.
i have yet to try that traditional fried chicken..i hardly make chicken strips but your version is very tempting,,look at that crust.