Healthy buffalo chicken salad
Baked chicken nuggets are the star of this healthy buffalo chicken salad!
It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a nugget – so long in fact that I didn’t think I missed them. It’s all about the dipping choices, anyway. 🙂 Buuuut, then I made this awesome new salad and in the process created some healthy, gluten-free nuggets! Liv and I have been enjoying them as a little snack and they’ll be great chopped into salad, too.
Here’s the salad:
Baked Chicken Nuggets
To make the bites, I chopped two chicken breasts into large cubes.
I put all of the pieces in a bowl with 1 egg, whisked with a little water.
I seasoned the egg/chicken mixture with salt, pepper and garlic, and in another bowl I added 1/2 C almond meal, 1/2 C crushed brown rice cereal, sea salt, pepper and garlic powder.
The chicken bites were dredged in the dry mix then placed on a cookie sheet. I had sprayed the cookie sheet with olive oil first and also sprayed more on top of the chicken before baking at 375 for 20 minutes.
Healthy Buffalo Chicken Salad
In the last 5 minutes of baking, I added a mix of melted hot sauce and butter (3 T hot sauce, 1 T butter) to half of the chicken bites. These were my “buffalo bites” and the rest were left plain to share with Livi. 🙂 She’s been going crazy for them with BBQ sauce.
I’ve been enjoying them with spinach, fresh goat cheese and cilantro:
They would also be wonderful on a salad with bleu cheese, avocado and chives!
Here’s the full recipe:
PrintHealthy Baked Buffalo Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts, chopped in large cubes
- 1 egg
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic powder
- 1/2 cup almond meal
- 1/2 cup crushed brown rice cereal
- Spray olive oil
- 3 tbsp of favorite hot sauce (I used Cholula)
- 1 tbsp butter, melted
- Spinach
- Goat Cheese
- Cilantro
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Grease a baking sheet with olive oil spray.
- Whisk the egg with a bit of water.
- Toss the cubed chicken in a bowl with the egg mixture.
- Season with salt, pepper and garlic.
- In another bowl, mix the almond meal, brown rice cereal, salt pepper and garlic powder.
- Dredge the chicken through the dry mix and place on prepared baking sheet.
- Spray olive oil on top.
- Bake for 15 min.
- While baking, mix the hot sauce and melted butter.
- Carefully brush the chicken bites with hot sauce mixture.
- Bake for another 5 minutes.
- Serve on top of a bed of spinach, sprinkle with goat cheese and cilantro.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2
I can definitely tell that these will be a staple in our house. They’re fun for Liv to dip and also much more nutritious than the nuggets that inspired their creation.
Please let me know if you give it a try! Vegetarian friends, I think that extra-firm, sprouted, pressed tofu would be a great substitution for the chicken.
Hope you enjoy <3
xoxo
Gina
47 Comments
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@Gina – what are you using specifically brand wise for the ‘crushed brown rice cereal’? Thanks again for sharing – these look DELISH!
it’s the 365 (whole foods brand) brown rice cereal
oh, these look delicious! i would love to try making these sometime (i have gf brown rice crispies in my pantry right now – my fave cereal!).
Gina! I would love for you to shop fresh from the farmers market and then prepare a meal with foods only local (and blog it!) I have been LIVING on all local food and hubby and I have not been out to a restaurant in months!!
i could totally do that! since we have our farm box coming again it should be much easier. i would die without restaurant dining, though. it’s a fun date night for us– we both love going out for a nice dinner together
Oh this chicken looks so amazing! Dipped in a little bit of honey mustard dressing…they’d be perfect! Great recipe!
Just wanted to say thanks so much for always thinking of us veggie/vegan friends 🙂
i got yo back 😉
tomorrow’s recipe is totally veg! xoxo
Picture of that fresh goat cheese = I DIE!
it is soooooooo good.. especially the toasty bits!
This recipe sounds awesome! I love the combination of almond meal and brown rice crisps for the crust. I always just use almond meal but I bet the crisps add great texture!
These sound so good Gina! I like to use Mary’s Gone Crackers herb-flavoured crackers in place of bread crumbs in recipes, but I have a box of brown rice crisps that have been in my cupboard forever so I might use them for this exact purpose!
You sold me at gf chicken bites. Can’t wait to give this a try!
I recently started having gluten sensitivity so I definitely want to give these nuggets a try. Looks delicious!
I made something similar the other night. I blitzed some chia seeds in the thermomix and added garlic powder, cracked pepper and a little Parmesan cheese. I crumbed chicken for my fiancé and tofu for myself. I then added a little garlic and ginger powder to some soy sauce for flavouring. That was a little too strong! 🙂
YUM! Can’t wait to start creating in the kitchen again 🙂 Thanks for sharing these guys look AMAZING! Love + Shine CourtStar
Looks delicious. Will be trying them this week!
YAY! I love your “breading” mixture. It can be used on a lot! Veggie sticks too. Gracias!
Totally thought the cheese was angel food cake for a second… I got a little too excited.
This looks delicious and so healthy! All your recipes look amazing!
These look so good! I have to try them. I will probably cut larger size pieces and eat them alone instead of on a salad. The salad looks wonderful too though, what a great idea!
Oh yay! I’ve been looking for healthy chicken buffalo recipes. I’ve been attempting buffalo cauliflower lately too because I had some at a restaurant that was delicious, but that turned out a little weird. Thanks for this recipe!
Do the nuggets freeze well…and when reheated, stay crunchy? These would be a nice addition to things I keep in my freezer for my GF friends and out of the blue stop by!
I’m newly gluten free…these look SO flipping delicious, I can’t wait to make them!!!
Love making homemade “shake n bake” nuggets in a baggie!! I’ll definitely have to add some cholula next time…it’s our favorite =)
Oh YUUUUM! i made your zucchini sticks today in a similar way today and they were delish! These are next!
I wanted to let you know also that I am in week 3 of summer shape up and loving.it. I haven’t been eating the cleanest (birthdays, work parties, all the summer fun is starting to add up), but I am doing my best and the workouts have been killing me. I just did workout 3, and it only look me 35 minutes (without the HIIT). I couldn’t even do the HIIT at the end because I was dripping sweat, tired and shaky just after the circuit! I LOVE your workouts so much, thank you for making them so fast and effective!
Yum! These look so easy and delicious! I love chicken nuggets but have stayed away from the fried ones so these are a great substitute.
Wow, these look SO good! I’m always looking for new ways to jazz up chicken while still keeping it on the healthy side. Now I’m totally going to try making some this week! 🙂
This looks awesome I will have to try it this weekend! By the way I just wanted to say I tried your raw vegan chocolate tart this past weekend when some friends came over and it turned out amazing, everybody loved it! Thank you for posting such amazing recipies!
yay, i’m so happy everyone enjoyed it! it’s one of my all-time favorites
xo
Simply beautiful! I never saw fresh goat cheese before – I bet the combination is to die for. Will definitely give the healthified buffalo wing version a try.
Where in the world did you find that delicious-looking hunk of goat cheese??
the farmer’s market!
These sound so yummy!
We can’t buy Brown Rice Cereal here, but I have some TVP left, maybe that could be a good substitute?
definitely!
So good & so simple! Ill be trying this for sure! 🙂
Kerry X
baked chx nuggets are the best! ..even though you’re right about the dipping sauces 😉
I absolutely love buffalo chicken but it’s normally so unhealthy! This is such a great recipe! Your salad looks delicious and that goat cheese looks out-of-this-world! Thanks for sharing!
This looks AMAZING!! Must try- the goat cheese and the buffalo chicken sound like an amazing pair.
i cooked up some paleo crispy chicken fingers myself today! though i used tapioca flour, salt, cayenne, garlic, onion powders fried in coconut oil and sprinkled with salt.
delish!
Just did the chicken! Loved it!
Used only almond flour, rosemary and nutmeg.
:)!
Hi Gina,
love your blog! Question- any suggestions as to what to replace the almond meal with if someone is allergic to nuts? I’m not but my boyfriend “thinks” he is. lol
Thanks!-
Vanessa
Just made the chicken nuggets for dinner. My 18-month-old gobbled them up!! Think I will be making these to freeze, especially for when #2 gets here in December! Thanks for the great recipe!
Made this for dinner as a surprise for my boyfriend who LOVES buffalo chicken – he loved it and I can’t wait to make it again!!! Thanks for all your amazing recipes! 🙂
Made these today and both hubby and I loved them!! Thanks for posting this recipe!!
awesome!!!