Skip the Line and make chick-fil-A’s famous chicken nuggets at home for a fraction of the price. Made with real chicken breasts, a blend of spices, and the secret ingredient, pickle juice. Served with a homemade Honey Mustard sauce, these nuggets are sure to satisfy the entire family!

If you love Chick-Fil-A as much as I do, then you know how good their chicken is. I personally LOVE the spicy chicken deluxe sandwich, but today is all about the nuggets. My daughters are crazy for them. Now, of course, kids do love nuggets but I was shocked to see my 2-year-old actually finish her 6 nuggets at Chick-Fil-A the other day, so I took her back again and she seems to enjoy them very much. Maybe a little too much…

So everyone’s happy, right? well not really, mainly because our family day is Sunday and that’s when we eat out but Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays (which I completely understand ). So I decided to tackle the recipe at home because I was not too happy to read about how much MSG and sodium are in those little nuggets of heaven.

How To Make Chick-Fil-A Nuggets

Now, this recipe isn’t their secret recipe it’s just my copy-cat version.  I don’t know how close I came to their original recipe, but it tastes pretty much the same, if not better and much healthier!

One of the top secrets to most fast food places is that they marinate the chicken in pickle juice to keep the chicken moist and give it an amazing taste. I know it’s hard to sacrifice a jar of pickle juice but the pickles will be just fine without the juice and will be totally worth it when you taste the chicken.

You can also use this method for marinating any type of fried chicken. If you must, and you don’t have pickle juice marinating the chicken in just milk will also work just as well but again, I highly recommend the pickle juice.

To begin, you will need to marinate the chicken in a mixture of milk and pickle juice. This helps tenderize the chicken so the longer, the better but generally you don’t want to go over 48 hours.

Next, remove the chicken from the fridge and whisk an egg into the mixture. Lastly, dip the nuggets into the seasoned flour mixture and fry until golden and cooked through.

How to Make Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

I like to serve these delicious nuggets with a honey mustard dipping sauce. It’s similar to the chick-fil-a sauce but without the bbq sauce included. If you are looking for a flavor similar to chick-fil-a, feel free to add a tablespoon of BBQ sauce to it.

To make the sauce, whisk mayo, yellow mustard, honey, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cover and store in the fridge until ready to use. The sauce will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

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4.64 from 49 votes

Chick Fil A Nuggets

By: Layla
Skip the Line and make chick-fil-A's famous chicken nuggets at home for a fraction of the price. Made with real chicken breasts, a blend of spices, and the secret ingredient, pill juice.
Prep15 minutes
Cook15 minutes
Total30 minutes
Servings 4 serving

Ingredients 

For the Nuggets:

  • 2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts or tenderloins, about 1 pound cut into 1 inch chunks
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup dill pickle juice, optional but highly recommended
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar, powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon paprika, optional
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • peanut oil, is best or canola oil (about 1-2 cups depending on pan size)

For the Dipping Sauce

Instructions 

To make the nuggets:

  • In a large bowl, combine chicken, 1/2 cup milk and pickle juice. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 20-60 minutes or overnight, the longer the better. Remove from fridge and and an egg to the mixture.
  • Heat peanut oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Now for this step you can either use a ziplock bag or simply dip the chicken into the flour mixture (in a bowl) and then place in oil. In a gallon sized ziplock bag, mix the flour, powdered sugar, and spices until well combined. Add the chicken pieces (without liquid) and shake well until fully coated.

  • Working in batches, add chicken to the skillet and cook until evenly golden and crispy, about 3-5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack or plate lined with paper towels.

  • Serve immediately with honey mustard.

To make the honey mustard

  • Whisk together mayonnaise, mustard, honey and lemon juice in a small bowl; set aside in the fridge for later.

Equipment

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving (without dipping sauce), Calories: 253kcal, Carbohydrates: 18g, Protein: 19g, Fat: 11g, Saturated Fat: 3g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 89mg, Sodium: 1137mg, Potassium: 353mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 4g, Vitamin A: 379IU, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 50mg, Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Dinner
Cuisine: American
Keyword: buffalo chicken, chick fil a, nuggets
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68 Comments

  1. Definitely thankful I followed a suggestion by one of the people who commented to triple the seasonings! They turned out so tasty! I forgot to put sugar and still tasted great! I let marinate a day and a half (just because I didn’t have time to cook earlier) and turned out great! The only thing is they didn’t look like chick fil a nuggets but did taste like it (I used vegetable oil). I just bought the chick fill a sauce they sell at Walmart to make it easier. Made them with GF flour! 😊

  2. Great recipe! I did do it slightly different. I marinated 1 1/2-2cups of pickle with the egg and milk together for 8 hours. Then did 3/4 cups of flour with 1/2 cup of corn starch, 1 Tablespoon of each Paprika, salt and pepper. We then fried them in canola oil.

  3. Made these Chick Fa La nuggets!!! So good!!! Great recipe!! Will make again!!!

  4. I made this and it was so easy, shame I didn’t have the right size tin, but I still made it work. Struggled to get it out like but I got there in the end too lol.

    Any idea on how many calories 1slice contains?

  5. This is very delicious recipe, one of the best I’ve tried so far.

  6. Honestly, go ahead and double the seasoning. Especially the salt and sugar. But they’ll come out pretty good!

  7. Easy recipe. Def lacked flavor. I tripled the seasoning amounts. Not sure if I liked the strictly flour breading texture. Will marinate in pickle juice again but will look for better breading alternatives. Thanks

  8. This was pretty good! My family ate them before they were served! But I thought that it wasn’t the strong chick fil a flavor… but it was good with the sauce!

  9. Tried a couple copycat recipes and this one is my favorite! Delicious! I actually found that buttermilk makes them even juicier so use that if you have it. =)