Honey Chipotle Chicken Strips

Name: Honey Chipotle Chicken Strips
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 13 min
Ingredients: 8 frozen breaded chicken strips; ⅓ cup honey; 2 tablespoons ketchup; 2 teaspoons white vinegar; 1 teaspoon ground chipotle powder; ½ teaspoon salt; Chopped parsley (for garnish)

These 5 ingredient air fryer honey chipotle chicken strips remind me of my favorite order from Chili’s! The sauce is both sweet and spicy and the chicken turns out nice and crispy, thanks to the air fryer! This recipe starts with frozen strips, so it’s an easy way to get dinner on the table quick!

Honey chipotle chicken strips on a plate with potato wedges.

When we’re going out to eat, I’m mostly looking at the different sauce options…if I could get one of each sauce at every restaurant I visit, that’d be my dream come true. 🙂

Chili’s Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers are a definite favorite, with that sweet and spicy sauce coating every bite of their crispy chicken strips.

We came up with our own honey chipotle sauce that’s both sweet and spicy, but we just used frozen chicken strips for this one – just wanted to keep dinner extra easy! You can absolutely use homemade chicken srips with this sauce, if you like.

Table of Contents

Ingredient Notes:

Honey chipotle chicken strip ingredients spread out on a countertop.

Chicken Strips – We use frozen, prebreaded chicken strips in this recipe to take full advantage of the convenience of the air fryer. You can make your own made from scratch chicken tenders in the air fryer if you follow our air fryer chicken tenders.

Seasonings– Honey, ketchup, vinegar, chipotle powder, and salt make up the sauce.

How to Make Honey Chipotle Chicken Tenders:

Fry the chicken– Spritz the chicken with an oil mist or brush on some vegetable oil lightly on each tender. Place in the air fryer and fry at 370 degrees F for 8 minutes or cook according to the package of your chicken strips.

Make the sauce – While the chicken is cooking, add the honey, ketchup, vinegar, chipotle powder, salt, and water to a saucepan and simmer for just a couple of minutes.

Honey chipotle sauce simmering in a pan.

Serving- To serve you can coat the tenders or serve the honey-chipotle as a dip. If you choose to coat the tenders you can add the cooked chicken strips and the sauce to a bowl and toss until coated. If you prefer less messy food, just use the sauce as a dip!

Chicken tenders being tossed in honey chipotle sauce.

FAQ:

Do I serve these with a dip?

We love to dip our honey chipotle chicken strips in ranch dressing to cool things down just a touch, but the sauce is very flavorful all on it’s own. The sauce itself makes a great dip too!

Are these spicy?

These are a bit spicy from the chipotle powder, but they’re also sweet thanks to the honey and ketchup. To reduce or increase spice, just adjust the amount of chipotle powder used.

Recipe Notes:

While this isn’t a direct copycat of Chili’s honey chipotle chicken crispers, we did take inspiration from their sauce and think it tastes quite similar. The chicken strips will be different as we didn’t attempt to recreate those.

The sauce does have a bit of a kick thanks to the chipotle powder, so if you’re feeding littles it might be best to serve the sauce on the sauce as a dip for them to try.

Honey chipotle chicken tenders being dipped into ranch dressing.

More recipes you might like:

Chicken strips on a small round plate with potato wedges.

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