COCONUT CHICKEN TENDERS

I think it's safe to say that chicken tenders are everyone's favorite! 

Before I came back to school, I raided my pantry and one of the random things I grabbed was coconut flakes. I suck at coming up with dinner ideas on my own, so Pinterest is my best friend for that. As I was browsing, I found this coconut chicken tenders recipe and lemme just say, thank god I did. I love this recipe because its fun, easy to make, and SO delicious. 

Here is the link if you want to try it out or follow the recipe!

https://www.playpartyplan.com/baked-coconut-chicken-tenders/#recipe. 

You will soon come to find out that I usually just use the recipes as a general guide rather than using the exact measurements and ingredients. I think this is what makes cooking so creative and exciting because there are so many variations to every recipe and you can customize it to your own liking. 

INGREDIENTS I USED:

- chicken tenders

- coconut flakes 

- eggs

- spray coconut oil

- panko bread crumbs 

- almond flour

- garlic power

- onion powder

- ground paprika

- salt

- pepper

To start off, I put two eggs in a bowl and mixed it together. In another bowl, I mixed together almond flour and all of the spices. I didn't measure the flour or spices, just kinda eye bawled it. I used almond flour because it was the only flour I had, but you can use any type of flour that you prefer. You can also use any variety of spices that you like, I just used those five because they are my go to spices. Then in the last bowl, I lightly mixed together equal parts of the coconut flakes and almond flour. 

As you can see in the picture down at the end, I placed the bowls in the order that I dip the chicken tenders. After I took the chicken tenders out of the package, I took a paper towel to dry them out. Honestly not sure if it has any purpose but my mom does this a lot when she cooks so I usually do it too. I first dipped the chicken tenders in the egg bowl and made sure it was well coated. I then rolled it in the almond flour mixture. I noticed after a few chicken tenders that the coconut flakes/panko mixture wasn't sticking to the chicken tenders, so then I dipped them in the eggs after the almond flour and right before the coconut flakes/panko. I still kinda had a hard time getting the coconut flakes to stick, so I literally pressed them down on the chicken tenders. One thing to note, I did start to run out of the almond flour and coconut flakes/panko mixture, so I just added more as needed. 

The recipe calls for frying the chicken tenders on a pan then finishing them off in the oven, but I threw them in my air fryer instead. If you don't own an air fryer, I HIGHLY recommend buying one! However, if you don't own an air fryer or prefer to bake them, then follow the recipe. Before putting food in the air fryer, I always spray the basket with a little coconut or olive oil (depending on what I have) and let it preheat for 5 mins. After the air fryer was preheated to 400 degrees, I cooked the chicken tenders for 6 minutes on each side. I made a bunch of them (to eat the other half of them for lunch the next day) so I had to do 2 batches. I won't lie, the coconut flakes were kinda falling off when flipping them in the air fryer but the majority of it stayed on. 

I was so happy about how they turned out! It was crispy, brown, and cooked perfectly in the middle. I just used ketchup as my sauce, but you can use any sauce you prefer. As I was cutting the chicken tenders, the breading was falling off of the actual chicken tenders... not sure if its because I used almond flour or what but if anyone knows how to make them stick together better let me know! Overall, I loved making this recipe and will definitely be making it in the future.