Almond Crusted Chicken Tenders

A few months ago, I came home to find a Tupperware container filled with fried chicken tenders. My first thought, as always, was, "What's in these?" Living at home with my parents, and eating the way that I do, my healthy habits have rubbed off on my father, so I was pleased to find that these were indeed "safe" for me to eat. After trying them, I knew I had to share the recipe with you all!

It took some time to perfect this recipe before I could post it on the blog. Every time I tried to recreate what my dad cooked, the tenders came out differently and I wasn't satisfied. Last week I finally got together with my dad, and we spent a few hours trying different variations of the tenders until we settled on our favorite. It was tricky to find the right combination of tapioca and almond flour. For my GAPS diet readers, this recipe is not GAPS friendly. The tenders can be made with just almond flour, but I prefer the texture of the coating with the mixture of the two. To get started, this is what you'll need below!

Ingredients
• 1.5 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts
• 1.5 cup almond meal
• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp garlic
• 1 tsp pepper
•1 egg
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
​• coconut oil
​• coconut aminos *optional

Prep your chicken. You can purchase presliced chicken breasts, or cut up chicken thighs yourself to make about 4 or 5 tenders per thigh. Be sure to cut off any excess fat. Set aside your chicken.

In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, tapioca flour and all of the seasonings. Set aside.

In another bowl, combine the egg, unsweetened almond milk and coconut aminos.

Preheat your pan with enough coconut oil to coat the entire pan. You want to cook the tenders at a low/medium heat.

Dip your tenders in the egg/almond milk mixture, then coat them with the almond/tapioca mixture. Place them in the pan and cook for a few minutes on each side or until nicely browned.

Between each batch we cleaned the excess flour out of the pan and added more coconut oil. If you leave the flour in the pan it starts to burn, and you end up with extra Cajun chicken tenders. Also, add coconut oil as you see fit. Sometimes in the middle of a batch the pan dries out, and you'll need to add more. You want to make sure there's a nice coating of oil for each batch.

Serve up and enjoy! I hope you guys like these tenders as much as I do. Until next time.