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!
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:
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.
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!
FAQ:
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!
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.
More recipes you might like:
- Frozen burgers in the air fryer
- Frozen hasbrowns in the air fryer
- Air fried frozen pizza
- Air fryer frozen shrimp
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Honey Chipotle Chicken Strips
This recipe is inspired by our favorite chicken strips at Chili's, but we started with frozen strips to keep it easy and just recreated the 5 ingredient honey chipotle sauce. This sauce is both sweet and spicy and perfect for tossing your chicken strips in or just using as a dip.
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
Instructions
- Spritz chicken strips with oil spray. Place in air fryer basket in single layer.
- Air fry at 370 for 8 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking.
- While chicken strips are cooking add the honey, ketchup, vinegar, chipotle powder, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water to a small sauce pan over medium heat.
- Bring sauce to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.
- To coat the strips in the sauce, pour the sauce into a large bowl and toss the cooked chicken strips in the sauce.
Notes
If you'd prefer the sauce to be more or less spicy, adjust the chipotle amounts accordingly.
The sauce also makes a great dip if you'd prefer to keep things a bit neater when eating. We like the flavor of having the full chicken strip coated in sauce though.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 2 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 639Total Fat: 25gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 18gCholesterol: 68mgSodium: 1600mgCarbohydrates: 80gFiber: 2gSugar: 50gProtein: 29g
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