Hot Honey Pretzel Chicken Fingers with House Sauce.
We’re doing it! Major flavor game changer here with pretzel crusted chicken fingers!
I’ve basically never loved chicken fingers more in my life than I do right now.
If you’ve been around for a while then you are aware of the ridiculous arsenal of chicken finger recipes I have here on the blog. To this day, they remain one of Eddie’s favorite foods – they are his ultimate comfort food. Sometimes he even orders a salad with chicken fingers on it!
My go-to method for making the chicken is much like the way I showed you how to do this parmesan chicken a few weeks ago. A wire rack is necessary because it helps keep the chicken crispy all the way around. If you don’t have one already, I suggest putting one on your wish list because I use it all the time.
The other necessary ingredient is olive oil spray or some form of cooking spray. Back in the day when I started making chicken fingers like this, the only available option was Pam cooking spray! I would literally spray them with Pam. These days, you can find avocado oil spray (our fave), olive oil spray, coconut oil spray and so on. Spraying the crusted tender and using the rack when baking practically makes the tenders taste “fried.” Or least have that “fried” texture.
It’s imperative for my perfect chicken finger recipe.
Now… on to the flavor! First of all, crushed pretzels are what we use for the breading here and let me just tell you… it’s incredible. Max and Emilia LOVE pretzels. In fact, pretzels might be their favorite snack of all time. So I knew that making pretzel-crusted chicken would be a huge, gigantic, enormous hit.
I was right!
To make these a little more grown up-friendly, I added in the hot honey drizzle. We adore hot honey in this house too. I’ve used it on pizza, on pineapple wedges, sweet potatoes and even salmon. It elevates the simplest, most boring meal and makes it exciting.
For instance, I don’t necessarily want plain chicken fingers. But I definitely always want hot honey chicken fingers!
The honey is not overly spicy either. Well, technically I guess that depends on your peppers, but I remove the seeds before drizzling and it’s perfect. And I don’t love spicy food. To me, adding hot sauce on everything just… ruins it for me. Dishes that are ridiculously spicy aren’t enjoyable for me; it’s almost like they paralyze my taste buds and I can no longer taste the flavor of the food.
So when I say the hot honey is worth it… it’s worth it. However, it’s not the only sauce here.
My house sauce is from The Pretty Dish and it’s to die for. Creamy, a little tangy and the perfect dip for pretty much everything. Like every food under the sun.
Now go RUN and make these delicious crunchy bites!
Pretzel Crusted Chicken Fingers with Hot Honey
Hot Honey Pretzel Chicken Fingers
Ingredients
pretzel chicken
- 1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken tenders
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 2 cups mini pretzel twists crushed
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
hot honey
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 jalapeño pepper thinly sliced
How Sweet Eats house sauce
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon your favorite BBQ sauce
Instructions
pretzel chicken
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Line a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top. Spray the rack with nonstick spray.
- Season the chicken tendres with the salt and pepper. Place the pretzels in a food processor and blend until mostly fine crumbs remain. Place the pretzels in a bowl. Stir in the garlic powder.
- In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs.
- Take each chicken tender and coat it in the beaten egg. Dredge it through the pretzel crumbs, pressing gently so the crumbs adhere. Place the tender on the rack and repeat with remaining chicken. Once all the chicken is finished, spray it with avocado or olive oil spray.
- Bake the chicken for 12 minutes. Flip it gently and spray the other side with the oil spray. Bake for another 10 to 12 minutes.
- Let cool slightly before serving with the house sauce and hot honey.
hot honey
- Heat the honey and the jalapeños in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Let the honey come to a light simmer then turn off the honey. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Strain the honey through a fine mesh sieve to remove the peppers and the seeds.
How Sweet Eats house sauce
- Whisk all ingredients together until creamy and smooth and combined. This stores great in the fridge for a few days.
Did you make this recipe?
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I appreciate you so much!
I want to float on a pretzel raft in that house sauce.
68 Comments on “Hot Honey Pretzel Chicken Fingers with House Sauce.”
My family loved these. My husband was pleasantly surprised with the jalapeño honey drizzle. Not flavors he would have put together but loved it!
This was a new recipe for me as I had lost my original pretzel chicken finger recipe. I didn’t have enough honey so I substituted maple syrup. This is a far better recipe! The glaze is so good! My old recipe was good but a little dry. The glaze makes a huge difference! I will try again with the honey but I recommend using maple syrup too. Thank you!
Have you tried these in the air fryer?