Healthy Chicken Nuggets
These healthy chicken nuggets are baked, made with ground chicken, and take less than 30 minutes from start to finish. I love serving these with homemade maple mustard sauce and a side of roasted broccoli.
Baked Chicken Nuggets
The ultimate kid friendly meal! This easy homemade recipe is so much healthier than frozen nuggets and tasty enough for adults to enjoy too! These healthy chicken nuggets are made with ground chicken instead of chunks of chicken breast. In my opinion, this creates a better nugget texture. Also, chicken breast chunks do not always reheat well. Using ground chicken makes the texture soft, almost meatball like, and reheats so well.
I love the ease and simplicity of baking these nuggets. All of the ingredients get mixed together in a bowl and then you form small unevenly shaped nuggets. It is even easier to shape these than meatballs, because nuggets are not meant to have a uniform appearance.
Once you form your nugget pieces, you gently coat them in a light breading of seasoned breadcrumbs and grated parmesan, add them to a baking sheet, and spray them with avocado oil. This Healthy Chicken Nugget recipe takes about 23-25 minutes to bake in the oven.
Air Fryer Chicken Nuggets
When I made these, I baked one batch and I put the other batch in the air fryer. Either method works wonderfully. I like making healthy chicken nuggets in the air fryer when I am only making a half batch. If I am making a full batch or a double batch, then cooking them all on the same sheet pan makes more sense for me.
If I use the air fryer for a full batch, I would have to cook it in two different batches so the nuggets can fit on the tray. The air fryer method cooks much faster, so if you are short on time and you own an air fryer, this would be a great recipe for you to try. If you want to cook these in the air fryer , they require about 11-12 minutes and you do not need to flip them.
Tips for making delicious chicken nuggets
- Use organic ground chicken instead of chunks of chicken breast. The texture will be more nugget-like and the whole family will be into it
- Use grated parmesan and not shredded parmesan. The grated parmesan will blend easily into the nugget mixture and also blends in easily with the coating mixture.
- Spray both sides of the nuggets with avocado oil or olive oil. This will help them get a little crispy
- Serve them with a delicious sauce, like my homemade maple mustard sauce or something else your family already loves.
How to make healthy chicken nuggets
INGREDIENTS
chicken mixture
- 1 lb Ground Chicken
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
coating
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup parmesan
- 1.5 tsp arrowroot flour (you can use cornstarch or tapioca flour too)
Spray
- avocado oil spray
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 400F
- Mix all ingredients for the chicken mixture in a bowl.
- Mix the coating ingredients on a flat plate
- Form little nugget sized patties from the chicken mixture and drop each nugget into the breadcrumb mixture.
- Put the nuggets on a large parchment lined baking sheet and spray them with avocado oil spray. Bake at 400 for 23 – 25 minutes minutes. After 15 minutes. flip the nuggets and continue to bake.
If you like this recipe, you may also like:
Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Healthy Chicken Nuggets
Ingredients
chicken mixture
- 1 lb Ground Chicken
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
coating
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup parmesan
- 1.5 tsp arrowroot flour or cornstarch this step is optional but adds a slight extra crispy coating
Spray
- avocado oil spray
Instructions
Baking Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F
- Mix all ingredients for the chicken mixture in a bowl.
- Mix the coating ingredients on a flat plate
- Form little nugget sized patties from the chicken mixture and drop each nugget into the breadcrumb mixture.
- Put the nuggets on a large parchment lined baking sheet and spray them with avocado oil spray. Bake at 400 for 23 – 25 minutes minutes. After 15 minutes. flip the nuggets and continue to bake.
Air Fryer Instructions
- Cook them for 11-12 minutes at 390F and there is no need to flip them.
Made these nuggets last night and they were easy to make and delicious! Used gluten free breadcrumbs due to an allergy and the recipe still worked great 🙂 Highly recommend making these!
I am so happy you enjoyed these, Anna!
Made these for a quick protein snack. They are great.
so glad you liked these, Christina!
These are so good and the mustard sauce is amazing. Can you freeze the nuggets after they are cooked?
Yes you can! The best way to do this is to lay the nuggets flat on a small baking sheet and stick the whole thing in your freezer. Then, once frozen, remove the baking sheet from the freezer and toss them all in a freezer safe bag. This will ensure they keep separated while they are frozen and you will be able to remove them individually as you want to use them.
How would you reheat these when they are frozen? Do you keep them frozen or defrost and reheat them?
Thanks
Do you think this would work with double the breadcrumbs and no Parm? I can’t have dairy and the dairy free Parm tends to act more like mozzarella.
Hi Anita,
Yes, it will work but just keep in mind that you should add additional seasoning if your bread crumbs are not seasoned. The parmesan adds salt too, so if your breadcrumbs do not have salt in them, you may need to add some.
These couldn’t be easier to make and they are leaps and bounds better than any frozen chicken nugget. My family loved them!
can these be made with ground turkey?
Yes, of course!
We loved these and my boy is a picky eater haha I used panko instead of bread crumb since cleaner ingredients but they turned out so good! Only question do you know about how many calories these are? Thanks 🙂
These are so yummy and so easy! My 18-month-old devoured all the nuggets I put on his plate. For the parentals, I made large patties out of the chicken mixture. I did a simple slaw and served on a brioche bun. An instant classic that will be revisited for years to come.
I love that your family loved this so much! Thank you for letting me know!
Hi Erin! Thank you for this quick, easy and tasty recipe! I’ve made it twice in the last month! I did this without thinking, I froze a prepared/uncooked batch. Is it possible to cook these frozen or did I make a mistake?
Hi! I am so glad you loved them! I am sure it is alright. They may either need a longer cooking time, or need to be thawed slightly before cooking.
My daughter was hesitant to try these because my nuggets shaping skills are awful but she LOVED them! The amazing taste outweighed the looks and they didn’t bother her stomach one bit. So glad to have a picky eater friendly recipe(: