Gluten-Free Homemade Chicken Nuggets Recipe

Kid-friendly and gluten free homemade chicken nuggets that are crispy, healthy, and easy to make. No breadcrumbs and no unhealthy oils.

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Chicken nuggets are one of those toddler staple foods. But *I* also happen to love them! I use my kids as an excuse to eat chicken nuggets. It’s totally fine. We’re all happy.

Even though I enjoy chicken nuggets, I honestly can’t eat real chicken nuggets (or should I say, not real chicken nuggets?). Chicken nuggets from good old McDonald’s are coated in glutenous flour and fried in…well…only the Lord knows what. 

Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

When you make homemade chicken nuggets, you know EXACTLY what’s in them. And then they can actually be a relatively healthy food. That sentence makes me very excited.

Healthy chicken nuggets.

Zero guilt.

Baked chicken nuggets versus fried chicken nuggets?

I’ve tried simply baking chicken nuggets at a high heat, but they were missing that fried coating that is just key to making them taste like a legit chicken nuggets.

I’ve tried just frying them, but it was hard to get the chicken cooked through without the outside burning. And I’m paranoid about under cooked chicken.

How about a little bit of both? A little frying, a little baking. But done in one pan, so there isn’t one extra thing to wash here.

I’ve landed on pan frying these homemade chicken nuggets and then baking them in the oven for the perfect crispiness.

…without all of the added frying oil.

It’s really not so much the frying that bothers me as it is the wasted oil when frying. Especially because you’ll want to use a good quality oil (like this one). When you use good oil, you get the added benefits of eating that oil. 

A note on oil

Using the right oil is important when cooking at high temperatures.

Oils can break down and become very unhealthy when thy reach certain heat levels. Even extra virgin olive oil, which is considered a healthy oil, loses many of its benefits when heated over 325 F. It also starts to get a funky flavor.

A great oil to use for pan frying is coconut oil.

I’m not a huge fan of my chicken nuggets tasting like coconut, so I use refined coconut oil for this. You really can’t taste the coconut at all.

There’s some debate about unrefined versus refined coconut oil benefits, but from my research I’m very comfortable using both. 

Refined coconut oil also has a higher smoke point, which means it doesn’t start to break down until it hits a pretty high temperature (400 F). 

Another great option is avocado oil. It also has a high smoke point, but has benefits to eating it (it’s low in saturated fats, and can reduce cholesterol and blood pressure).

How to make chicken nuggets without breadcrumbs

You’re going to be doing a very familiar chicken-breading system.

You coat the chicken pieces in egg and then toss them in a flour blend.

Related post: How to Make Your Own Gluten Free Flour Blend

The best way to do this, is to put the flour mixture on a very large plate or pan, with the flour mixture off to one side and plenty of room on the other.

That way you can flour the chicken pieces individually and put them off to the side until you’re ready to cook them all at once.

Doing this will actually save time and cuts down on hand washing since I get the big messy part over with at once

If you’re already eating a gluten-free diet and make your own flour blend, then you probably have everything you need on hand…so let’s get started!