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Coconut chicken fingers are a light and healthy weeknight meal alternative to deep fried chicken. They’re quick and easy to make, and kid-friendly, too.
Who would have thought when I set out this week planning my meals and going to the grocery store that I would have such a busy week? I never could have predicted that I would have so much come up after school that I barely had time to eat dinner, let alone cook it. Alas, this is the life of a parent. You have to be able to roll with it or you won’t be a very happy person. Not every minute can be scripted and planned out.
On Tuesday, I tried to prepare for the rest of the week by making two dinners. In theory, this was a good idea but at the time, I felt like I was in the kitchen cooking forever. That may be because I was… 3 hours is practically forever. Lesson learned.
I did make some thing, sort of new and following my theme for the week. I made another recipe from this month’s issue of Cooking Light.
This recipe was pretty easy to make, and I think you could substitute shrimp for chicken and regular flour for the rice flour. I made 2 batches of this. One with unsweetened coconut and one with the regular sweetened variety.
The sweetened coconut became kind of gummy when cooked in the pan. They were still very tasty, just not very pretty ???? I served this with a tangy sweet red chili sauce and a scoop of sticky, sweet brown rice.(aff. link)
I hope you and your family love this coconut chicken fingers recipe!
Total Servings 6
These pan fried coconut chicken tenders are much healthier than their deep fried chicken cousins. They’re quick and easy to make, and kid friendly, too!
20 minPrep (inc. refrigeration & rest time)
8 minCook Time
28 minTotal Time
Ingredients
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts.sliced into “fingers”
- 1 C rice flour (you can also use all-purpose flour)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp red pepper
- 1 C buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 C unsweetened flaked coconut
- 3 TB canola oil
Instructions
- Place flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish. Stir to combine.
- Combine the buttermilk and egg in another shallow dish, and put the flour into a 3rd dish.
- Place the mixtures side by side, like an assembly line.
- Dredge chicken into the flour, then dip it into the egg/buttermilk mixture, then coat lightly into the coconut. Repeat with each piece of chicken.
- Heat a skillet with the canola oil over medium high heat. Add chicken to the pan and cook for 4 minutes on each side, or until chicken is no longer pink and outside is slightly golden brown.
I had the coconut chicken finished cooking and ready to serve in under 30 minutes.
This recipe is really very good. Neither of my kids are particularly fond of coconut, but they didn’t even seem to notice it at first. Once they did notice, and they realized that they liked it, they knew they had been tricked.
It didn’t stop them from cleaning their plates!
