Today’s post is written by my husband G who is a Baltimore, Maryland native and die hard Ravens fan. He’ll introduce our new recipe for Paleo Buffalo Chicken Nuggets just in time for Sunday’s Ravens-49ers match-up. The following recipes may come in handy for Super Bowl parties if you are looking for some delicious finger food without all the junk. Take it away G!
Super-Bowl Sunday – It’s an American tradition!
Since the first Super Bowl game was played in January of 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, the game has morphed into a mega-event that can captivate an entire nation for one Sunday afternoon. If you believe the statistics, nearly 85% of all Americans will be watching this year’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. Simply put, that’s incredible!
And let’s not forget the drama surrounding Super Bowl XLVII. For starters, the head coaches of each team are brothers! That’s right, brothers! John Harbaugh coaches the Ravens and his younger brother Jim coaches the 49ers. Then there’s the impending retirement of the Raven’s team leader and future Hall-of-Fame linebacker Ray Lewis, as well as the ascension of wonder-boy 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick to genuine NFL superstar. All in all, it looks to be a great game as fans around the country hunker down in front of their televisions to cheer on their team.
And what Super Bowl party would be complete without good food? Unfortunately if you’re eating Paleo, the pickings are often slim…but it doesn’t have to be that way! In the spirit of great tasting, all-American bar-food that goes so well with football and the Super Bowl, we’re happy to present…
Paleo Buffalo Chicken Nuggets!
These paleo buffalo chicken nuggets are surprisingly tasty! (Our family fights over these every time Lea makes them.)
Now for the recipes…first come the chicken nuggets, then homemade blue cheese dressing, dairy-free ranch dressing and how to make a plain paleo chicken nuggets version.
Ingredients
Paleo Buffalo Chicken Nuggets
- 1 pound ground chicken (a little fat makes for a moister nugget)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 2 teaspoons Frank’s RedHot Original Red Hot Sauce
- 1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Paleo Chicken Nugget Coating
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon celtic sea salt
Buffalo Chicken Nugget Sauce
- 1/3 cup Frank’s RedHot Original Red Hot Sauce
- 3 tablespoons ghee or butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup coconut flour, onion powder, garlic powder and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix well.
- In a medium bowl place the ground chicken, one egg, 2 tsp Frank’s hot sauce and the coconut flour mixture.
- Mix with hands until well-combined but do not overmix.
- Scoop out 2 tablespoons of the chicken mixture and roll into little meatballs. (You should end up with about 20.)
- Shape each meatball into a flatter, “nugget” shape. (I did this assembly-line style)
- Combine the remaining 1/4 cup coconut flour, 2 tablespoons flax meal and 1/4 teaspoon salt and dip each nugget gently into the flour mixture until coated on all sides.
- Place the coated chicken nuggets onto a baking sheet covered with a Silpat or parchment paper.
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- While chicken nuggets are baking, stir together 1/3 cup Frank’s hot sauce and 3 tablespoons ghee or butter and heat until warm and combined.
- Once the chicken has baked for about 15 minutes, remove chicken nuggets from the oven and carefully dip each one in the butter mixture until coated on all sides. Place each nugget back on the baking sheet and bake for another 5 minutes.
- Serve hot with celery sticks and dip of choice. (See following recipes for Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing and Dairy-Free Ranch Dressing.)
If you can eat dairy you might like to try our homemade blue cheese dressing recipe.
Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing
- 4 ounces good blue cheese
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- salt to taste
Crumble the blue cheese into the remaining ingredients and stir until well-combined with a creamy texture (or as chunky as you like it) add salt to taste.
If you are dairy-free you could try a paleo ranch dressing.
Dairy-Free Ranch Dressing
- 1 cup paleo mayonnaise
- 1 cup full-fat coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons fresh dill, finely minced
- 1 tablespoon chives
- 2 fresh garlic cloves, finely minced
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Plain Paleo Chicken Nuggets
I’m a “Paleo” Nugget!
If you are making these chicken nuggets for smaller kids or simply do not love the “Buffalo” flavor I suggest the following:
- Leave out the 2 teaspoons of hot sauce in the meat mixture.
- Bake the coated nuggets as instructed and simply dip them in melted ghee (or butter) prior to cooking the last 5 minutes. (Without the ghee the nuggets will be too powdery)
- Alternatively, you could fry the coated nuggets in some ghee for about 3-4 minutes per side and finish in the oven for 5-7 minutes.
We’re curious – What are your favorite Super Bowl party snacks? Will you be trying to stick to a paleo menu?
Thanks for stopping by!
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Oooh, the buffalo chicken lovers are going to be excited about this recipe! These nuggets look amazing. Will share on my gfe Facebook page shortly. Thanks and good luck to the Ravens!
Shirley
Thanks Shirley, I appreciate the compliments and the sharing! Go Ravens!
Do these get crispy in the oven?
Vanessa,
They aren’t fried so they don’t get crispy. But you could fry them if you are looking for more of a crispy crust.
Lea
Lea, wonderfull recipe. Thanks for sharing.
P.S. I was surprised to see “ghee” in the recipe
Hi Esha,
Ghee is lactose and casein-free so it is an option for many folks who cannot otherwise tolerate “dairy” products. It tastes great too!
Thanks for your comment.
Lea
I tried to make these tonight but completely messed up the recipe – don’t talk on the phone and try to make a new recipe… Anyways, I made the nugget mix, and then combined everything…. for the rest. After realizing what a mess I made I just threw it all together and combined it. Even though it was not how you suggested it.. It tasted very good! Thank you and next time I try this I will do it right…
Jill,
I think there are several different ways you could go about making this so it sounds like you accidentally found one! I hope this doesn’t mean the instructions were too confusing! I might go back and separate the ingredients for the breading from the sauce mixture – that may have made it confusing. Thanks for the feedback.
Lea
We couldn’t wait, so we tried these w/things we had on hand as I’m in the process of changing over my kitchen to paleo! My substitutes: Ground turkey instead of Chicken, rolled oat flour instead of Coconut flour, hawiian marinade & herb marinade instead of the hot sauce. (we had 2 sauces as I had a Costco size ground turkey package! Both were very good!)
Definitely cannot wait to make them again using the correct ingredients! The kids enjoyed dinner tonight!
Lisa, I know a lot about giant Costco bags of food that need to be used! I can imagine turkey works well in this dish. I chose chicken mainly because of the whole “chicken nugget” thing.
its great when we find things the kids will like. Thanks for letting me know your alterations.
Will be trying these today! Already made the blue cheese dressing which is fantastic- thanks for the recipes!
Lea, I only have Tiger sauce. Would that be a good substitute for Frank’s.
Mary, I’m not familiar with Tiger sauce. I would guess any spicy, cajun-style (or similar) sauce would work. Frank’s is mostly vinegar and cayenne pepper. I hope it turns out good. Lea
Do you think it would be ok to freeze half of the batch? I made them today and they are delicious! But it’s just me and I can’t eat them all over the next couple days.
I don’t see why not. Although I haven’t tried because every time I’ve made the nuggets we’ve finished them off. Let me know if it works!
Love this recipe! Always looking for a good snack for when non-paleo guests come over that they never know is ‘paleo!’
I might give these a try and post them to my blog at http://www.cloudywithachanceofsprinkles.com if you don’t mind. I will link to the original recipe here, of course
Hi Brittany,
I’m glad you like the recipe. Linking is great but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t repost the recipe in its entirety. Thanks!
Lea
Yesterday my boy asked for those terrible frozen nuggets, I told him no and I would cook him nice ones. So tonight I made these ones. “They are real nice” was the comment from the very hard to please 14yr old. Even hubby down them but he would like it with spice so I will have to try some spicy sauce for him.
I will have this recipe on hand from now on, thanks Lea!!!!
Hi Lea,
First time commenting – love your blog. Thank you for all of the recipes – I made your Coconut Cream Pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas! I can’t wait to make these for my kids (the plain ones at least). Nuggets used to be an easy school lunch and boy do I miss easy school lunch making! Thanks again!
Erin
I haven’t tried the nuggets yet (making them tonight), but I used that same coating to fry some tenderized veal cutlets in bacon fat just now and it was great!
do you have a substitution suggestion for the egg?
I’m not sure what to tell you to substitute for the egg. You could possibly just leave it out, especially if the chicken is very sticky.
You can always use Chia seed geletan as a substitute for egg. This article describes how… http://wellnessmama.com/4981/10-uses-for-chia-seeds/
These were the best nuggets ever!! My husband loved these and so did my 2yr old. I think daddy loved them more
) thanks for the great recipes! Keep them coming!
These were sooooo good! Made them tonight for dinner and my girls, age 9 and 11, loved them. They helped me make them which was fun for them, and they will definitely be in our rotation of favorites. We are going to use the leftovers tomorrow for a buffalo chicken salad.
That’s great, Sandy. Sounds like fun and I love the idea of a chicken salad with this.
Made these and they were great! I didn’t have hot sauce so I used half a tsp of chili powder and a tsp of mustard instead in the chicken mix and in the dipping butter I added a tsp of smoked paprika and a half tsp of chilli powder.
Made these for the Super Bowl and they were a great hit! Since I was feeding grown men, I doubled the recipe and made them slightly bigger. All were impressed by the flavor and how filling they were. Now I’m gonna try using some thai ingredients to give them a different kick! Thanks for the recipe.
You’re welcome Stacy. Thanks for letting me know. The thai seasonings sounds delicious.
Thanks for this recipe. This are delicious. Everyone in the family LOVED (and I have teens).
I’ve made these again and again. But today I I made a double batch, cooked them in ghee and now I am going to freeze them so when my son comes home from school all he has to do is finish cooking them in the oven. Whoa, a healthy after school snack. I have frozen them in a snap lock bag so he can SEE them and can get the amount he needs.
Meant to ask, he would like a sauce like sweet and sour. Any ideas?? He does not like mayo at all. At the moment he uses BBQ sauce but he says it needs something different.
i cant wait to make these buffalo chicken nuggets
Great recipe!!! doubled & I had to hide the last two so I can see how they freeze!!!
mmmmmmm
I’ve not seen coconut flour. Would putting coconut in a food processor for awhile give me the same results? This recipe looks very interesting.
Coconut flour is very different from what you can create at home. The store bought version is very dry and absorbs a lot of liquid. You could try leaving it out entirely and using less egg. I believe I’ve gotten a comment or two saying it worked out that way.
Thanks for the recipe! My gym is doing a 21 day nutrition challenge which is basically a paleo/detox adventure, and these work wonderfully as a protein option! Quite delicious
Oh man, these are the BEST chicken nuggets I have ever had!! Followed the recipe precisely, and they turned out perfectly!!! I have 3 teenage boys, so I tripled the recipe, and frozen them individually on cookie sheets before the baking process. Slammed them all in a giant ziplock bags. These cooked awesomely from the freezer. This is totally a keeper!!! Thanks for posting the recipe!! You rock!!
)
Oh wow Shantel,
Thanks so much for the feedback. I’m actually really glad to hear that they freeze well before being cooked. I’ll have to try that in the future.
Lea
How long / what temperature did you bake them at?
Heya
Baked them from the freezer at 400, don’t remember for how long. I checked after about 20 minutes with a thermometer for internal temp to read 165 F. I turned the oven back down to 375 when I removed the nuggets for the final hot sauce process. Then, cooked at 375 for the final 5 minutes as the recipe states. They were just as good as the ‘no-freeze’ ones…
I was wondering about the nutriotional information on this recipe?
Hi Erica,
I haven’t taken the time to look up the nutrition profile for these ingredients. As long as I know I am using healthful ingredients I don’t really worry about the details and I don’t count calories. But if you really want to know the details I believe there are tools you can find online to plug the ingredients in and get the nutrition info.
Lea
Just made these, delish. Can’t wait to try other recipes from this website. Thanks so much for sharing
Made these tonight and they were amazing! Trying to eat healthy to keep Rheumatoid Arthritis in check. My big guys are always saying “ohhh boy” when I have something healthy and new. They loved these and couldn’t find a single thing “wrong” with them.
Jane just wanted to let U know Ilove these & have made them into BBQ & Teriaki to keep things interesting…& they freeze great……….!!!!