15 BEST chicken tender recipes you'll come back to time and time again! Chicken tenders aka chicken tenderloin make for fast, easy, and cheap dinner recipes! It's a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!
Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of our chicken tenderloin recipes post, we included a printable recipe card for one of our most popular healthy and simple chicken tender recipes!
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Chicken Tenderloins Recipes
Chicken tenders seem to be one of the most undervalued and underused chicken parts. But seriously, they've become one of our most beloved go to simple weeknight dinner ideas! Getting your main dish on the table in UNDER 15 minutes is tough to do, but chicken tenders are up for the job!
Whether you're looking for recipes for chicken tenders in your oven, on the stove, grilled, air fried, in your crock pot, or Instant Pot, we have you covered! We've featured a variety of methods to add variety to your meal rotation.
Most of the chicken tenders recipes come from recipes on our website, a few come from other foodie websites we enjoy. If you want to learn how to cook chicken tenderloin you'll love this resource that features tons of chicken tenderloin recipes using different types of techniques! ALL of the homemade recipes are simple and under 30 minute meals.
The BEST Chicken Tenders Recipes
Making a breaded chicken tenders recipe in an air fryer frozen frozen makes a fast an easy dinner that makes perfectly cooked chicken strips every time!
Easy sauteed chicken tenders with a creamy mushroom and caramelized onion sauce!
Get dinner on the table fast with this creamy cast iron chicken recipe that cooks in just 20 minutes.
Seasoned air fryer chicken tenders without breading are a quick and easy way to make healthy chicken tenderloins for dinner. Use them as a main dish or add them to your favorite recipe. They're great as a weekly meal-prep item too!
Simple Instant Pot chicken tenders you can make from frozen. What an easy way to have extra chicken on hand for other types of chicken tender recipes like soups, stews, salads, and casseroles.
How to pan fry chicken tenders so they're crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside. The pan fried chicken tenders without breading is perfect sliced, chopped, or shredded for your favorite recipe.
Easy keto air fryer chicken tenders with almond flour and parmesan crust that cooks in less than 15 minutes.
How to boil chicken tenders or chicken tenderloins for recipes that call for pre-cooked chicken like salads, pasta, or casserole. Takes less than 15 minutes and it works for either fresh or frozen chicken tenders (tenderloins).
Easy healthy baked chicken tenderloins without breading and with a dry rub that cook in just 10 mins! Dip in your favorite sauce or use in recipes.
"Super simple to make and super versatile, these Slow Cooker Ranch Buffalo Chicken Tenders do the trick for a lighter, healthier weeknight dinner!"
"Enjoy one of Cracker Barrel’s most popular menu items with our version of their grilled chicken tenders recipe. Cracker Barrel is known for making delicious home-cooked food"
A chicken tenders recipe wrapped in bacon? Need we say more?
If you have a smoker like a Trieger or Big Green Egg, you'll love these quick and easy tenders that taste amazing and cook up insanely fast.
It's not necessary to only cook chicken tenderloin recipes as whole pieces, they also work amazing in recipes like this chicken noodle soup. Plus they're more economical than chicken breast.
Another recipe for chicken tenders, a creamy ranch chicken casserole recipe that uses tenderloin instead of breast meat or chicken thighs.
Chicken tenders are pieces of chicken meat cut from chicken breasts. If you purchase chicken breast meat with the rib meat attached, that means the chicken tender is also included with the chicken breast. When the tenderloin muscle gets cut off, that's what is being referred to as a chicken tender.
Chicken tenders and chicken cutlets are one and the same in the sense that they're both pieces of chicken meat that come from the chicken breast. Chicken tenders are the rib meat attached to the chicken that usually gets removed. Whereas chicken cutlets are chicken breasts that have been cut in half lengthwise to make thinly sliced chicken breast meat which cooks evenly and very quickly.
There are many different ways to cook chicken tenders and several different recipes for them. Some people like to bread chicken strips before cooking them, while others like their chicken tenderloins without breading or seasonings. In chicken strip recipes, chicken tenders are often paired with marinades to add flavor and moisture before being cooked.
Maybe, chicken tenders are a part of the attached chicken breast meat. When people refer to chicken strips they often are thinking of the breaded chicken breast pieces that have been sliced into strips. Sometimes these terms are also used interchangeably.
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The 15 BEST Chicken Tender Recipes (BBQ Baked + More!)
Make our popular chicken tenderloin recipe for BBQ baked chicken tenders and be sure to check out all 15 tenders recipes in our blog post for your weeknight dinner inspiration!
Ingredients
- 2 lb chicken tenders, raw
- ¼ cup butter, melted or olive oil
- 2+ tablespoon Chicken rub (store bought or homemade)
- CHICKEN RUB INGREDIENTS
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon ground onion powder
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 tablespoon sea salt or coarse kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoon brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F and put the oven rack in the center position.
- If you're making the homemade chicken rub recipe, combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl. It makes more than the recipe needs but it'll give you plenty of extra for other chicken (or veggie, or pork) recipes.
- Place the raw chicken on a baking sheet, spacing them out so they'll cook evenly.
- Brush both sides of the chicken with olive oil or melted butter and then sprinkle the rub on both sides of the chicken.
- Bake the chicken for a total of 10 minutes, you can flip it after 5 minutes but it's optional. In our oven, the recipe took 10 minutes to cook but we suggest using a digital meat thermometer and to cook the chicken until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 160 F.
- Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes until serving. Enjoy!
Notes
Use in your favorite recipe like a chicken salad or eat them as a main dish alongside your favorite dipping sauce like BBQ..
Other seasonings to add- taco, lemon pepper, McCormicks spice blends
You can mix the olive oil and melted butter together instead of just using either or!
The chicken rub we used has a “tiny” bit of a kick, if don't mind the spice be generous with the rub. You can also do a light sprinkle of chicken rub or just coat one side.
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