Copycat Chick-Fil-A Grilled Nuggets Recipe

Chicken nuggets are a wonderful thing. There really is nothing like the savory little bites just begging to be dipped in all of your favorite sauces. But fried ones can be a little heavy, and especially when it comes to making chicken nuggets at home, they can be a lot of work. With these copycat Chick-fil-A grilled nuggets from developer A.J. Forget, you have neither of those problems. They're quick and easy to make, don't require any messy breading, and are nice and light, with plenty of protein.

This recipe takes only 36 minutes to get on the table, and 20 of those minutes you are just waiting for the chicken to marinate (and whipping up whatever sauces and side dishes you want to serve with the nuggets). After you account for loading into the car, driving there, and waiting in line, these homemade copycat nuggets are probably even faster than running out to your local Chick-fil-A restaurant.

As far as flavor goes, we think these copycat nuggets are even better than the real thing. And while some chicken nuggets are healthier than others, skipping the breading and frying makes these wonderfully light. Just bite-sized pieces of chicken breast velveted with baking soda, marinated in pickle juice, and spiced and grilled to perfection — ready to be dipped in the accompanying copycat Chick-fil-A sauce or whatever else your heart desires.

For the copycat Chick-Fil-A Grilled Nuggets in this recipe you will need chicken breast, pickle juice, sugar, baking soda, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. For the copycat Chick-Fil-A sauce you will need mayonnaise, yellow mustard, barbecue sauce, honey, and apple cider vinegar. Once you have all of these ingredients together, you are ready to begin cooking.

Slice the chicken breasts in half lengthwise, into thin cutlets. Then slice these cutlets into nugget-sized pieces.

Mix the pickle juice, sugar, and baking soda in a sealable container until dissolved (it'll foam up, and that's fine).

Add the chicken to the marinade, seal, and marinate for 20 minutes.

While the chicken is marinating, make the Chick-Fil-A sauce by stirring together all of the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Set this aside for now.

After the 20 minutes have passed, drain the chicken and rinse well with water. Then pat dry with a paper towel.

Mix up the garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, and pepper, and season the chicken evenly.

Bring a grill or grill pan to medium heat and add the chicken.

Grill the nuggets for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until cooked through.

Serve hot, with plenty of Chick-Fil-A sauce on the side for dipping.

With this recipe you've got the protein and the sauce covered, but what about the sides? No Chick-Fil-A meal is without a delicious side dish. Fortunately, we have lots of suggestions for what to pair with these tender, delicious grilled nuggets to make a perfect meal.

We might as well start with the basics and suggest the most common side for any fast food meal: french fries. Chick-fil-A is well-known for its iconic waffle fries, and we even have a copycat Chick-Fil-A waffle fry recipe for you, if you want to complete the homemade combo meal. Or, if you'd like to save a little effort, you can always pick up a bag of frozen waffle fries and just toss them in the oven.

But the sides available at Chick-Fil-A go much deeper than just fries. In fact, the highest rated Chick-Fil-A side in our ranking was not the fries, but the mac and cheese. It is good enough that we've already put out a copycat Chick-fil-A mac and cheese recipe for you. Or you could try something like this simple one pot mac and cheese. (We have many, many mac and cheese recipes for you, should you choose that for your side.)

Considering these are the grilled nuggets, we'd be remiss not to mention the healthier sides from the Chick-fil-A menu here. Namely, the kale salad. With grilled nuggets and a kale salad with pears and maple pecans, this fast food copycat actually comes out a really nice, light dinner.

Making perfectly tender chicken nuggets is not always the easiest feat. While chicken breast is far from the toughest protein out there, the crisp and soft texture of a chicken nugget is often the result of being made with a heavily-processed protein paste. In fact, we suggest using a blender to make the best copycat Chicken McNuggets. But when it comes to grilled nuggets, made from pieces of pure chicken breast, we use a different technique: velveting.

If you've ever wondered how Chinese-style stir fries produce such tender meat — maybe you've tried to replicate a favorite dish at home and ended up with tough, stringy bites — velveting is the answer. When you velvet meat, you expose it to an alkaline substance like baking soda for a brief period in order to tenderize the meat. Once thus marinated, the proteins in the meat do not seize up as much when cooked, resulting in a beautifully tender final product.

In this recipe, we use a dash of baking soda mixed into the pickle juice marinade to accomplish this effect. With just 20 minutes marinating in this solution, the meat not only takes on the flavor of the pickles, but it also turns the nuggets from what could be tough bites of grilled chicken breast into perfectly tender little morsels. And the best part is that it doesn't affect the flavor at all.