Let me start out by saying that I don’t eat fast food like, ever. Ok, there was that one incident involving McDonalds and a particularly happy happy hour a few weeks ago, but as a general rule of thumb no, never.
Greasy burgers and deep fat fried onion rings and fries are totally unhealthy, and I end up feeling like crap for about 2 days afterward indulging. It’s just not even close to worth it.
However.
There are exceptions, naturally! Three of them, in fact – In-N-Out Burger, Five Guys, and Chick-fil-A. Each are so delicious that it’s worth a little regret and a grumbly stomach for a few satisfying bites.
Among the three, Chick-fil-A stands out for specializing in succulent, crispy breaded chicken that is always tender, all-white meat, and so dang juicy – plus the seasonings they use are just right. Imagine how tickled I was after coming across a copycat recipe I could make at home and customize to use a fraction of the oil the real restaurant uses, but still have it taste exactly like the real thing?
Chick-fil-A Bites with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce are insane!
Start the Chick-fil-A Bites by cutting a couple large chicken breasts into bite sized pieces, seasoning the pieces with salt & pepper, and placing them in a marinade of milk, 1 egg, and pickle juice.
Yes, pickle juice! I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I once heard that the key to Chick-fil-A’s signature flavor that it’s injected with pickle juice. Ok?!
Let the chicken hang out and marinate in the mixture for 2-4 hours in the fridge.
When you’re ready to cook the chicken, combine flour, powdered sugar, salt & pepper in another ziplock back, and transfer the chicken pieces over using tongs. Shake the bag to coat the chicken pieces completely with the mix.
Next, heat 1/4 cup peanut oil over medium-high heat in a Dutch oven or large skillet. If you don’t have peanut oil, vegetable or canola oil will totally do.
Test the oil to see if it’s hot enough by dropping a bit of the flour mixture into the pot. If it sizzles, the oil is ready. It it pops and spatters, the oil is too hot. If it does nothing at all, it’s too cold.
Working in two batches in order to avoid crowding the pan, place the coated chicken pieces into the oil using tongs. Cook until one side is golden brown, then flip and cook until the other side is golden brown. It depends on how big you cut your chicken, but my 1″ chicken pieces took about 3 minutes on each side.
Remove the chicken to a paper-towel lined plate, and continue with the other half.
Serve ’em hot and fresh with a simple homemade honey mustard sauce that I kind of wanted to spoon drink – it was da bomb!
free email bonus
Dinner Made EASY
5 days of simple yet flavorful recipes that take the stress out of dinnertime!
Chick-fil-A Bites with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce
Description
Chick-fil-A Bites with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce taste even better than the real thing, and are much healthier!
Ingredients
- 2 large chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces then seasoned with salt & pepper
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup dill pickle juice
- 1 egg
- 1-1/4 cups gluten-free or all-purpose flour (dish will not be GF if using all-purpose flour)
- 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 cup peanut oil, divided (or canola or vegetable oil)
- Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce:
- 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
- 1-1/2 Tablespoons yellow mustard
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 Tablespoons honey
Directions
- Whisk together egg, milk and pickle juice, and pour into a large ziplock bag or bowl. Add chicken pieces and marinate in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.
- Combine flour, powdered sugar, salt and pepper in a large ziplock bag. Shake to combine. Remove chicken from the marinade and add into the bag. Shake to coat the chicken completely.
- Heat half the oil in a large skillet or dutch oven over medium-high heat (6 or 7 out of 10.) Test the oil by dropping in a bit of the flour mixture. If it sizzles, the oil is ready, if it pops, lower the temperature a bit.
- Gently place chicken pieces into the oil with tongs. Do this in 2 batches, as you don’t want to overcrowd the pan. Cook the chicken for 3-4 minutes, or until golden brown on one side. Turn the chicken over and allow to cook for 3-4 more minutes. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate. Heat the remaining oil and continue with the other half of the chicken pieces.
- Stir together the honey mustard dipping sauce ingredients, and serve with the hot chicken bites.
Notes
Adapted from My Name is Snickerdoodle
This recipe is courtesy of Iowa Girl Eats, http://iowagirleats.com.
I want to make Chick-fil-A Bites for dinner everysinglenight – they were such a hit! The honey mustard dipping sauce gave the bites a pretty good run for their money though. Sweet, just slightly tangy, and so creamy.
Dipped, dunked, and devoured!
kayelee 06.25.2012
i worked at a chick-fil-a until about a month ago and we were like and express so we didnt have everything on the normal menu, just nuggets,strips,breaded and grill chicken sandwiches, fries, salad, slaw and lemonade, our chick came in bags and the strips and grill were already marinated, the grill chicken went straight to our grill machine but the strips along with the nuggest and regular chicken breasts were just dipped in the milk wash and then in the seasoned flour and fried in the peanut oil.. i cant attest to how or what they were marinated in before or what is in the flour mixture but this sounds like a hit…
Katie Caldwell 06.11.2012
Could you also substitute potato flour or tapioca flour for this? Thanks!
Iowa Girl Eats 06.11.2012
I’ve never tried, but I would think it’d work!
Maggie 06.07.2012
Trying these tonight for dinner. I am a teacher and am finally on summer vacation and this is one of the recipes I have been dying to try as my husband and I are big fans of Chick-Fil-A. Already made the honey mustard sauce-YUM! Chicken is marinading as we speak! Thanks for the recipe!!!
Chick-Fil-A Nuggets Part II « attempting2cook 06.01.2012
[…] This recipe was taken from https://iowagirleats.com/2012/03/01/chick-fil-a-bites-with-honey-mustard-dipping-sauce/ […]
Vinny Grette 06.01.2012
Great idea for adapting that dastardly fast food into something deliciously healthier – thanks!
Chick-fil-A Bites « Truffles Magazine 06.01.2012
[…] today’s recipe – homemade Chick-fil A inspired bites calls for ingredients that most will have on hand and if not there really easy to pick up at your […]
Hanna 05.13.2012
CLAIR : Maybe you should provide us with the original recipe then :) just sayin’
Great comments im trying this recipe today!
Clair 05.10.2012
I work for Chick-fil-A and we actually DON’T use pickle juice. We have two dill pickles on our sandwiches but neither pickles nor their juice ever come in contact with the nuggets as we’re preparing them. I’m curious to try this and see how they turn out. :)
Copycat Chicken Nuggets | Healthfully Indulgent 05.09.2012
[…] (Recipe from Iowa Girl Eats) […]
Baked Chick-Fil-A Nuggets | Honey, I Shrunk the Gretchen! 05.09.2012
[…] Iowa Girl Eats’ recipe for homemade Chick-Fil-A nuggets. Sean and I made these a month or so ago, and they are really […]
Pickle Powder Sugar Chicken–Say What? | Feisty Eats 04.26.2012
[…] invention. I rarely come up with a recipe anyway – I just make or bake them. This one came from Iowa Girl Eats – I don’t know where she gets all her ideas, but she has great recipes and posts for […]
This moment | Running The Halls 04.10.2012
[…] made these chicken bites tonight, though I think I really should have sprung for the peanut oil instead of using the canola […]
Honey Roasted Chicken Salad (Mayo Free!) | Iowa Girl Eats 04.04.2012
[…] light dressing of plain Greek yogurt swirled with honey and Dijon mustard, that was inspired by my Chick-fil-A Chicken Bites’ honey mustard dipping sauce (which, as you may recall, I semi wanted to […]
katie 04.03.2012
I would love to make these…but I do not use peanut oil, canola oil, OR vegetable oil. Only coconut or olive. Would these work too?
Iowa Girl Eats 04.03.2012
Olive oil would burn, but I think coconut oil might work!
Julie 04.18.2012
Using Olive oil to fry is very bad..at high temp it’ll break the fatty acids and its just plain bad for you. olive oil should be only used at a low/med heat. As for coconut oil, it has high resistance to high temp so it should be fine
tracybsn 07.11.2012
You can use grape seed oil it has a high burn temp. If you use coconut oil you will need to use the refined oil as it has the higher burn temp, the unrefined has a medium burn temp.
Erika 04.02.2012
what the heck does monkey style mean at in-n-out? hoping animal style… get the fries well done and animal style, you will forget about 5 guys fries… that said, this looks great & I’ll have to try it one Sunday when I have the unquenchable craving for Chick fil A bites
Michelle 04.02.2012
I can’t tell you how excited i am to make this for my family!! Thanks!
Erin 04.02.2012
Found this through skinnyrunner.com and I can not wait to try the receipe. Also, as a native Iowan living on the east coast, it makes me so happy to see some Hy-Vee love :)
You want my $10? You’re gonna have to fight me for it. 04.01.2012
[…] I made a special dinner for Jaybob tonight: Chick-fil-A bites from IowaGirlEats. I don’t know what the correct protocol is for linking to the original recipe, posting the […]
Lauren 03.28.2012
Made these tonight – they were great!
Homemade Chick-fil-A Sandwich | Then Comes Mercy 03.28.2012
[…] coming across a blog post by Iowa Girl Eats with a recipe for homemade Chick-fil-A nuggets, I immediately bought the ingredients and gave the […]