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Keeping things fun and easy with these baked Spicy Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken Fingers. They’re seasoned with homemade honey mustard, breaded in salty pretzel crumbs, oven baked, then dipped in a spicy-hot honey sauce, followed up with a cooling ranch. These are the “grown up” version of chicken fingers…that kids love too. And yes, they’re even healthier (these tenders are baked, not fried), and so much tastier. Serve with oven baked french fries and veggies for an easy dinner that’s different, sweet and spicy, and full of flavor.
So what do you do when life tells you to stay and home and work with what’s in your pantry? You make chicken fingers…breaded in pretzel crumbs…and you serve them with your favorite spicy honey sauce. At least that’s what I do. When you don’t have a lot to work with, you gotta try and make the best of what you got. And these chicken fingers are some of the best I’ve made.
Tangy from the honey mustard glaze, salty from the pretzel coating, and sweet from the spicy honey sauce, these flavors are hard to beat. Not only are these chicken fingers fun to eat, but they’re pretty easy too! Perfect for a quarantined Wild Wednesday night.
The story.
If you look back through past HBH recipes, you’ll see a handful of chicken finger and popcorn chicken recipes. There’s also my beloved (and popular) southern hot honey chicken as well. Yes, breaded chicken recipes are big favorites in my family. Personally, I love to bake the chicken fingers…and then add plenty of sauces for dipping. They’re so good, fun, and a nice switch up from the average weeknight dinner. You know?
But these chicken fingers are extra special, they’re a mash-up of a few oldie recipes I’ve shared in year’s past. For those of you who’ve been following along all the way back since the start of HBH (in 2012). You might remember that I once shared a pretzel crusted chicken salad with honey mustard. For whatever reason, as I was staring at the back of a pretzel bag I had in the pantry, I thought back to that chicken. And then, I knew I was making pretzel coated chicken fingers. I mean why not? I had frozen chicken tenders in the freezer. What else would I make with those two ingredients? It was a no brainer.
From there, I added the seasonings, plus the spicy honey sauce. In less than a few hours, I had these pretzel chicken fingers perfected. From there, I sent photos to my older brother Creighton, who loves chicken fingers more than anyone I know. Wishing he could have been here to enjoy them. Very much missing the rest of the family these days.
Creighton loved the photos and said to freeze some for his next trip out to Colorado.
The steps.
To start, mix up the honey mustard and toss it with trimmed chicken tenders. The honey mustard is our flavor and our “glue” that helps adhere the pretzel crumbs onto the chicken tenders.
Next, finely crush the pretzels into crumbs to bread the chicken. The finely crushed pretzels are key. They flavor the chicken with the perfect amount of salt, which pairs wonderfully with the sweet and tangy honey mustard.
Tip? Pulse the pretzels in the food processor to really break them down into a fine crumb. If you don’t have a food processor, just add the pretzels to a ziplock bag, then step on the bag with your feet to finely crush them. Trust me, this works. You can even just use the actual pretzel bag and step on that. It’s what dad used to do when he’d make potato chip chicken when I was a kid. This trick is an oldie but a goodie.
Next, bake the chicken in the oven until it crisps all over. My secret is to gently dab/brush the chicken with olive oil before it bakes. This helps the coating to really crisp up nicely in the oven. You can’t skip this step, it’s crucial.
On to the sauce.
No chicken finger is complete without a dipping sauce…our two. In this family, you can never have enough sauce.
So first…the Spicy Honey Sauce. It’s inspired by the famous Nashville Hot Chicken and it’s the same sauce I use on my southern oven fried chicken. It’s spicy, but balanced with a touch of sweetness. The classic way to add sweetness to this spicy sauce is with brown sugar, but I prefer using honey for better flavor and texture.
In addition to the spicy honey sauce, I wanted to pair the fingers with something cooling…
Enter the cool ranch. I like to simply mix up a quick homemade ranch, but you can easily use your favorite store-bought ranch too. I like to use both sauces. Then you get a little buttery sweet and spicy sauce mixed in with a little creamy cooling ranch.
It is SO GOOD!
Once the chicken is done cooking, serve it up along with the sauces. I like to add these Tuscan style fries. If you’re going to do a chicken finger night, you might as well add the fries. Hey, this is quarantine life, we have to try to make some fun. Plus, just like the chicken, these fries are baked, not fried.
To sum things up, the chicken is a touch tangy and perfectly salted. The sauce is spicy, yet buttery. Put everything together and you’ll have tangy, salty, sweet, and spicy chicken fingers. So much (really) good flavor.
The best part about this recipe is that you’ll hopefully be able to find all of the ingredients in your pantry and your freezer. With such a large family, I always try to keep chicken tenders in the freezer at all times. They thaw much quicker than chicken breasts, and they make for a great last-minute protein source. The rest of the ingredients are all taken from the pantry shelves… honey, mustard, spices, and dried herbs.
Simple and easy!
Lastly, if you make these spicy honey mustard pretzel chicken fingers, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Baked Hot Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken Fingers.
Servings: 6
Calories Per Serving: 888 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup plain yogurt, sour cream, or olive oil mayo
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 pounds boneless chicken tenders
- 2 cups finely crushed salted pretzel twists
- 1 teaspoon each garlic and onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- extra virgin olive oil for brushing
- ranch dressing for serving (optional)
Spicy Honey Sauce
- 1/4 cup honey
- 3 tablespoons salted butter
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper using more or less to your taste
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- kosher salt
Instructions
- 1. In a bowl, whisk together the mustard, yogurt, and honey. Add the chicken and toss well to coat. 2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.3. Add the pretzel crumbs, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and a pinch of pepper to a medium sized bowl. Stir to combine.4. Remove each piece of chicken from the honey mustard, and dredge through the crumbs, pressing gently to adhere. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all the chicken has been used. Make sure not to crowd your pan, if necessary use two baking sheets. Lightly brush/drizzle the chicken with olive oil. Transfer to the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.5. Meanwhile, make the spicy honey sauce. Melt together the honey, butter, cayenne, chili powder, paprika, and a pinch of salt. 6. Serve the chicken topped with flaky salt and spicy honey sauce for dipping. I'd add a side of ranch too. Enjoy!
This post was originally published on April 1, 2020
Oh my goodness! Another incredible recipe! Sooo delish! Going into monthly rotation for sure!
Yes! So glad you enjoyed this so much! Thank you Whitney! xTieghan
I am going to try this tonight but I just realized that I don’t have onion powder. Is there anything else I can substitute or can I just skip that ingredient? Thanks!
Hi Marcia,
You can just leave that out. I hope you love the recipe, please let me know if you have any other questions! xTieghan
What an amazingly delish dinner!!! The hot honey butter….dear me. It was drizzled all over everything!!! So tasty. The chicken was super tender (had It in yogurt marinade all day) and the kids hoovered it all up!!! Ran out of pretzels halfway thru breadibg so some crushed tortilla chips were a tasty sub. Thanks for a family friendly delicious meal.
YES!! I am so glad this one turned out so well for you Bernadette! Thank you so much! xTieghan
This recipe is amazing! The chicken was delicious and so tender! I loved the honey mustard sauce so much that I think next time I will make extra to serve as a dipping sauce. The spicy honey sauce was also a perfect pairing with these. We are definitely adding them to our regular dinner rotation.
Thank you so much Marlee! I am really glad this recipe turned out so well for you! I hope you continue to enjoy my recipes! xTieghan
Made these tonight and they were delicious! Sprayed with olive oil and flipped half way through and they were sooooo good!
Thank you so much Kim! xTieghan
Tieghan – I can completely understand why the is one of your favorites. Another home run from you. I was skeptical about the honey sauce, but wow was it delicious. I struggled to get my pretzels crushed fine (time for a new food processor), so the coating was a little chunky but so delicious. I used breasts cut into strips and it was perfect. Thank you again for another amazing recipe.
P.S. I admire your grace when dealing with people who find it easy to criticize and accuse from the safety and anonymity of their computer. One good thing that came out of it, I found your recipe for Spicy Honey Mustard in one of the links you shared. Can’t wait to try it 🙂
Hi Stephanie! I am so glad this one ended up turning out so well for you! Thank you so much! I hope you continue to love this and others of mine! xTieghan
Hi Tieghan! So excited to try these – curious if anyone has tried to air fry these?
Hi Kayla! I have not tested it in the air fryer, but others have and had success. Please let me know if you have any other questions! xTieghan
So so good. That honey sauce is everything!
Thank you so much Emily! xTieghan
These were awesome!!! Honestly, way better than I even expected, having done similar recipes before without much success. For review-scrollers like me who want deets, here’s what I did: I mostly followed the recipe exactly, but used what I had on hand and made a few tweaks based on my preferences/experience. I used 3 chicken breasts, pounded them to a uniform thickness of ~3/4 inch, and cut each into ~6-8 strips. I seasoned the chicken with a little S&P and garlic powder. I used half nonfat Greek yogurt and half olive oil mayo in the coating mixture, because I’m indecisive lol. I had pretzel sticks on hand, and they took a while to crunch down to remotely small enough, so i added some Panko to fill in, and I added a little salt to the dredging mix along with the listed spices. I used silpats and wire racks on my pans because I’m terrified of soggy-bottom chicken, haha. I baked ~10 tenders per sheet and flipped halfway through, and I used olive oil spray because #lazy. My oven usually runs hot, but I baked these for closer to the max time because I wanted as much browning as possible and I don’t mind slightly overcooked chicken. Mine didn’t get quite as brown as the photos, but they looked pretty good, and tasted even better! I sprinkled with flaky salt, and alternated dipping between the hot honey and ranch. I could’ve made my honey spicier (or maybe my cayenne is just years old, that’s more likely :)). THANKS, so excited to have a great oven-baked crunchy chicken recipe!!
Hi Sammie! I am so happy that this turned out so well for you! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and sharing some suggestions! xTieghan
So easy to prep and SO GOOD!! We didn’t have pretzels on hand so we used crushed corn flakes instead. So yummy, and the hot honey sauce was a perfect kick without being too hot. Can’t wait to make again!
Hi Kathy! I am so glad this one turned out so well for you! I hope you continue to love this and others! Also, hope you are staying healthy and safe! xTieghan
I’m so excited to try this chicken tonight and just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know that your recipes are CARRYING me through COVID quarantine! The recipe page for your browned butter chocolate chip cookies in my Super Simple cookbook is covered in smears of butter and chocolate.
xoxo, McKenna from Dallas
Aw! Hi McKenna! That is so amazing to hear! I am glad you are having a good time making them! I hope you are staying well! xTieghan
Ok so based on the comments I read I tried to very lightly drizzle them with oil, flipped them half way through, and cooked them on a cast iron instead hoping they would crisp up. I don’t think any of this really worked and I think what I would do next time is just not use oil at all. I noticed that the ends were the crispiest which was where I tended to forget to make sure to get the oil all the way to end. So unless you have an oil spritzer I honestly think no oil is the move.
In terms of the sauce, the spicy honey sauce was very good but for me mustard and pretzels are meant to be and no matter how good the honey sauce was I found my brain choosing what felt right haha.
Hi Abbey! I hope this recipe turns out better for you the next time you try it! Please let me know how it goes! xTieghan
Can the meat be “marinated” in the honey mustard sauce ahead of time?
Hi Monica,
Yes, you could do this up to 24 hours in advance! I hope you love the recipe, please let me know if you have any other questions! xTieghan
These were incredible!!!! Made with the air fryer last night – 400 degrees for about 15 mins, turning halfway. Took a little longer for me since we took chicken breasts (which were on the bigger side) and sliced into tenders. Sooooo good and the sauce was perfection. Thanks for another delicious recipe!
Thank you Lily! I am really glad these turned out so well for you! xTieghan
We made the Spicy Honey Mustard Chicken Fingers last night, Yum yhry were very good, thanks we’re enjoying all your recipes
Hi Pat! Thank you so much! I am so glad you liked these! xTieghan