Honey Garlic Chicken Tenders – Extra crispy chicken tenders are tossed in a buttery honey garlic sauce to make them sticky, sweet, and salty, all at the same time!
Today’s recipe is all about the classic chicken tender. But instead of boring plain tenders that you dip in a sauce, these chicken tenders are an excited mix of crispy coating and sweet, sticky sauce.
The tenders get their crispy coating from and wet/dry dredge AND a double-fry technique. The combo of wet and dry dredges creates those gorgeous chunks of coating on the outside. The double-fry technique fries the tenders once to cook through, and a second time to crisp up the outside. You cannot beat this method!
But before we go any further into the recipe, let’s look at some more photos of those tenders.
Making these tenders
These honey garlic chicken tenders are made in four main steps:
- Brine the chicken to get it marinated and seasoned well
- Dredge the chicken in dry/wet/dry coatings
- Fry the chicken tenders in two sessions
- Coat the tenders in the homemade sauce
Brining the chicken
It’s important to brine the chicken so that flavor gets into the meat of the chicken and not just in the coating. Brining is a perfect way to do this.
The brine is made from water and a collection of spices. They are the same spices used in the dry dredge so there aren’t conflicting flavors going on.
Dredging the chicken
Once the chicken has brined for at least and hour, remove from brine and dry as well as possible. If the chicken is too wet, the coating will not stick well.
After drying off the chicken, dip in seasoned flour, then the wet batter (made from water, egg, and flour), and then back into the seasoned flour. This final step creates a thick coating that forms chunks around the chicken, making it super crunchy.
Frying the chicken
Now that the chicken is coated, it’s time to fry them up! The oil is only heated to 300 degrees for the first frying session. This helps crisp up the outside (while keeping it pale) and also cook the chicken completely. It’s pulled out of the oil and drained on a wire rack while the oil temp heats up to 350 degrees.
The chicken is then fried for a second time, but only for a couple minutes, and then removed to dry again.
Making the sauce
While the chicken dries off, the sauce is made in a sauce pan. To do this, heat butter until melted and then add garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the garlic gets slightly browned. Add the paprika and cook for another minute. Finally, add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 2 minutes.
Remove the sauce from heat. Place the tenders in a bowl. Pour in the sauce and toss gently to coat them.
Tips & Tricks
- Don’t let the ingredient list intimidate you. We use the same spices in the brine as in the seasoned flour so it just looks like a lot of ingredients but they are the same, just split into different steps.
- Dry the chicken. The chicken but be as dry as possible before coating them so that they grab onto the coating well.
- Don’t burn the garlic. The garlic flavor is crucial in the sauce so make sure it doesn’t burn as you cook it. If garlic burns, it turns bitter and that’s not what you want in this sauce.
- Monitor the oil temperature. The oil temperature is very important in this recipe. Therefore, I suggest getting a candy thermometer to monitor it well.
- Use a wire rack for drying. This helps the excess out drain off so the chicken doesn’t get soggy. I used to use paper towels for this step but I found that the paper towels still held onto the excess out and got the chicken soggy anyway.
Honey Garlic Chicken Tenders
Ingredients
For the fried chicken tenders brine:
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 pound chicken tenderloins
For the wet batter:
- ⅓ cup flour
- 4 ounces water
- 1 large egg
For the seasoned flour:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground mustard
For the honey garlic sauce:
- 4 tablespoons butter unsalted
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3 tablespoons honey
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ tablespoon soy sauce low sodium
- ¼ teaspoon salt (less if using salted butter and/or full-sodium soy sauce)
Instructions
For the fried chicken tenders:
- First, we need to brine the chicken tenders. Add water and brine spices to a medium bowl and stir to combine. Add chicken tenders and make sure they are submerged in brine. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set in refrigerator for at at least 1 hour and no more than 8 hours.
- Once chicken is done brining, prepare the oil for frying. Place 2-3 cups of oil into a cast-iron skillet (should fill skillet halfway). Heat over medium heat. The oil should take about 7-10 minutes to get to 300 degrees. Use a candy thermometer to monitor temp.
- While oil gets hot, prepare the dredge. Mix wet batter in a medium bowl and the seasoned flour into another shallow bowl. Remove tenders from brine and place them on a plate lined with paper towels. Cover with more paper towels so the chicken tenders dry as much as possible.
- Dip each tender into flour, then wet batter, and then flour again. Squeeze the tender into the flour to help the flour adhere and create "chunks" of batter that will make the tenders super crispy.
- Once oil is at 300 degrees, place a tenderloin into oil. Add 3 more tenderloins and cook all 4 tenderloins for 3 minutes. Flip and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from oil and drain on wire rack over a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining tenderloins. Let tenderloins cool on wire rack. Raise oil temperature to 350 degrees.
- Once oil temp is at 350 degrees, fry chicken tenders again but just for 2 minutes to get them golden brown and extra crispy. Remove from oil and drain on wire rack.
For the honey garlic sauce:
- In a sauce pan, add butter and set heat to medium. Once melted, add garlic and cook until slightly browned. Add paprika and cook for 1 more minute. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat.
- Add tenders to a bowl and drizzle sauce over them. Toss to cover in the sauce. Serve immediately.
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Crushing so hard on these!!! The seasoning is on point and that crunch is incredible!
I so wish I had a late of these chicken tenders in front of me now. They look so good and your honey garlic sauce sounds scrumptious! On my to make list for next weekend.
These honey garlic chicken tenders are AMAZING!! They are fried to golden perfection and then drizzled with they honey garlic . I love recipes that are sweet and savory at the same time and this fits the bill.
Extra crispy texture with a delightful honey garlic flavor. These honey garlic chicken tenders are going to be on repeat at our place!!
I just have one word for this chicken tender recipe…HEAVENLY! Thank you for sharing!!
This was my first time trying the double-fry technique and I don’t know how I fried chicken tenders without it! They were extra crispy and I loved the garlic and honey flavor.
We loved these chicken tenders! They came out nice and crispy, and that honey garlic added such a wonderful flavor. Delicious recipe!
Just yum! This recipe looked intimidating but is really easy to make and the outcome is delicious. The honey garlic sauce comes out perfect and I am going to use this on other recipes.
These chicken tenders look SO perfectly crispy! We love honey garlic, so I’ll be making these for sure!
OMG! You’re making me hungry! I love anything crispy and these chicken tenders with honey garlic sauce is perfect! I have to try this out soon!
These look so good, I thought at first it was cornflake coating! I don’t eat meat but I’m going to try and replicate this with vegan chicken pieces!
These are SO GOOD! I found this post yesterday, and I actually had most of the ingredients in my house. So I made up a batch. I have zero leftovers.
These sound incredible! I absolutely love honey and garlic together. Definitely going to make these this weekend!
It was really a huge hit! My kids enjoyed it!
The texture of these tenders is just like a restaurant! Amazing crunch and the honey garlic sauce really takes them to the next level!
These Chicken Tenders turned out great! Everyone loved them and we will def make them again.
This looks so yummy! I love the tip to use a wire rack to drain the oil off, that’s probably where I’ve gone wrong making them at home.
These would definitely be a hit with my family! My daughter was just asking us to make chicken tenders, Im going to try this recipe this weekend!
It looks like you achieved such a great texture on these! Honey and garlic are two of my favorite things 🙂
I would eat so many of these tenders! What a delicious flavor. I tend to love all things with garlic.