Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers
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Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers – Easy oven fried chicken tenders tossed in a delicious sweet and spicy honey chipotle sauce!
Winger’s Sticky Fingers, Crispy Coconut Chicken Tenders, and Baked Firecracker Chicken Tenders are more chicken recipes to try next!

Ever been to Chili’s? Annnnnd did you try their Chicken Crispers? I bet you can’t guess where I’m going with this. Chili’s Chicken Crispers were my inspiration for this dish. My husband and I went to Chili’s often when we were dating and he always ordered their Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers. The sauce here is the real star of the show, so sweet and sassy with that chipotle spice… I just can’t. get. enough! You won’t believe how easy these are. Simply coat the chicken strips, let em bake til crispy, dip them in the sauce, and then smother them in cool and creamy ranch dressing.
Ranch dressing: not a requirement, but totally recommended.
Easy oven fried chicken tenders tossed in a sweet and spicy honey chipotle sauce!

More Recipes to Try
- Strawberry Bacon Chopped Salad – turn healthy into irresistible.
- Maple Dijon Chicken – hits sweet and savory in all the right ways.
- Garlic Parmesan Chicken – pure comfort with every bite.
When you make this recipe, snap a photo and tag me on social – I love connecting with you and seeing what you’re up to in the kitchen!

Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers
Ingredients
- 3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded to ½ inch thickness and sliced into strips
- 1 cup flour
- 2 cups panko bread crumbs
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 2 eggs,, lightly whisked
- 8 tablespoons butter, melted
Sauce
- ⅓ cup honey
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons chipotle adobo sauce , (the sauce that chipotle peppers are packed in inside the can! These can be found in the latino section at the market near the canned jalapeños.)
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce , (I used Franks)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- ⅓ cup cold water
- optional: ranch dressing for dipping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400. Pour melted butter onto a large baking sheet and brush to coat entire surface.
- Whisk together flour, and salt and pepper in a bowl. Place bread crumbs in a second bowl, and eggs in a third bowl. Dip chicken into flour and turn to coat. Next, dip chicken into egg, turning to coat, and lastly into panko bread crumbs, tossing to coat well. Place coated chicken strips in a single layer on prepared baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes, then flip strips over and bake another 8 minutes. Remove from oven.
- While the chicken strips are baking, prepare the sauce. Add all ingredients except for water and corn starch to a large sauce pan and bring to a gently boil, whisking throughout. Whisk together cold water and corn starch until corn starch is dissolved. When sauce reaches a boil, add corn starch-water mixture and stir until sauce thickens. Reduce heat to low.
- When chicken strips are finished baking, dip chicken strips in sauce, tossing to coat. Serve warm with ranch dressing for dipping if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.













Tried this tonight & it was delicious! Very similar to Chilli’s. Especially once you dip them in some ranch. Thank you for sharing.
My family has renamed this recipe ‘Volcano Chicken’ after someone dumped a dipperful over his rice and held it up, all proud of himself. It has been slightly altared for us, though. I cut up the chicken into smaller, thin pieces and skipped the breading part. I marinated it overnight in the sauce, and then just cooked it just like that in a high-temp oven for a while. The sugars caramelized all over it and it was awesome.
Because some of us are total wimps when it comes to spicy food, we skipped the hot sauce. I put a 15-oz can of tomato sauce in the blender with a few of the peppers in the can and whirrled it for 50 seconds on high. Used that to stretch the sauce.
Thank you for the recipe. My brother wanted chipotle chicken for his birthday and I had no idea how to do it. This recipe has made an instant favorite here, and that’s saying a lot. We are insanely picky.
~D
Hello!
First of all, I want to say my husband and I loooove this recipe (my husband is always asking when I’m going to make it). The closest Chile’s is almost 2 hours away and this recipe is the perfect replication of the restaurant’s!
But I do have a quick question. Our local grocery store has started selling adobo seasoning, and with this I would get a lot more bang for my buck. It’s a 8oz container and is the same price as those tiny chipotle cans, so I would like to use that instead. How much seasoning would you recommend to use in comparison to the sauce?
Thanks in advance!
Ooh that’s a fun seasoning – I don’t think I’ve come across that yet! I would probably try 1-2 teaspoons to start out. You can always stir in a little extra at the end if it needs more kick. 🙂
These were excellent! Easy to make; just dirtied a handful of dishes in the process. But they were really, really yummy and the sweetness of the honey matched really well with the ranch dressing! Great tasting by itself or with the ranch. Will definitely be making again!
I’m drooling here, seriously! Wow, guess what else I just put on the meal list? My family will love these!!!
I tried this last night and it was a huge hit!!!! I can’t wait to make them again thanks for sharing this
Aren’t they amazing?! My husband asks for these allll the time! I’m so glad you love them as much as we do! 🙂 🙂
Made this dish for supper tonight and my son and husband inhaled them. We definitely could have had them spicier so next time I will dice up a bit of the chipotle pepper and add it to the sauce. We will be having these again and again.
I love this recipe, want to make it vegetarian, because I do a lot of cooking/catering. How do you think this would work with tofu?
Hi Kari! I haven’t worked with tofu very much. I imagine it might work with fried tofu better than steamed tofu though – good luck! 🙂
I am making these tonight and I can hardly wait!! We love Chili’s, but there isn’t one nearby since we moved and I’ve been craving their chicken crispers!
Oh that’s a shame, I really think there needs to be a Chili’s in every town – I love their appetizer samplers!! I hope you like these crispers – my husband is a huuuuge fan!!P.S. – I adore your blog 🙂
I made these tonight and they were great. We loved the sauce. My only problem was that they did not crisp up. What did I do wrong?
Hi Cheryl, my husband has proclaimed these his favorite meal of all time haha! If you want them crispier, you can always switch the oven to broil for 4-5 minutes, that will crisp up the outside of the chicken strips really quickly! Careful not to let them burn though!