Oven Roasted Chicken Tenderswith cauliflower mash / baked tomatoes
These chicken tenders are seasoned with similar flavors that you'd find in traditional fried chicken, but they are baked instead of fried. To lighten this paleo-friendly classic meal, serve it with a creamy cauliflower mash. This dish was last featured in 2017.
Ingredients
- Salt - 1/2 tsp
- Garlic powder - 1/2 tsp (not garlic salt)
- Paprika, smoked - 1/2 tsp
- Oregano, dried - 1/2 tsp
- Black pepper - 1/4 tsp
- Chicken breast tenders, boneless and skinless - 1 lb (sub boneless, skinless chicken breast, sliced)
- Chicken spice mix (ingredients listed separately) - 2 1/4 tsp
- Foil - for lining pan
- Butter - 3 Tbsp
- Tomatoes, medium - 2, halved
- Italian seasoning - 1 tsp
- Cauliflower florets, fresh or frozen - 3 lbs, chopped into florets
- Stock, any type - 1/4 cup
- Butter - 2 Tbsp
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Make chicken spice mix - Combine salt, garlic powder, paprika, oregano, and black pepper. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Cauliflower - (This makes enough for 2 nights.) Chop cauliflower into florets. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Tomatoes - To slice tomatoes, set them stem-side up on a cutting board. With your knife parallel to the counter, slice tomatoes in half.
- Season chicken - Toss chicken in spice mix and tenderize with a fork.
Make
- Heat oven to 400F / 204C.
- While oven heats, place a large stockpot with water over high heat. Season the water with some salt. Bring to a boil and then add cauliflower. Simmer cauliflower until tender, 5 to 7 minutes for fresh cauliflower and 3 to 4 minutes for frozen cauliflower.
- Meanwhile, line a sheet pan with foil. Place butter (portion for chicken) on top of foil and transfer to heated oven. Leave sheet pan in the oven until the butter is melted, ~3 minutes.
- Carefully remove pan from oven and swirl butter around.
- Add chicken to sheet pan with butter.
- Bake until chicken is golden brown on the bottom, 10 to 12 minutes. Flip chicken and continue baking until chicken is cooked through, ~5 minutes more.
- Once chicken is baking, place tomatoes in a small baking dish, cut-side up. Top with some salt, some black pepper, and Italian seasoning. Transfer to oven and bake for 10 minutes.
- Return to cauliflower. Set half the cauliflower aside for Wednesday night. To remaining cauliflower, add stock and butter (portion for mash). Mash with a fork (or use an immersion blender to get it really smooth and creamy.) Add some additional stock if needed. Season with some salt.
- Serve chicken over cauliflower mash. Enjoy roasted tomatoes on the side.
Reviews
This meal has 37 reviews
I don't know why I haven't reviewed this before today. This is at least the 3rd time I've made the chicken for the kids. They love it. We didn't make any of the side dishes today. I served with corn, raw carrots & dip & sliced apples.
Everything tasted wonderful. The tomatoes were a favorite at my house!
Chicken was great! Used ghee for Whole30 & presliced tenders. Added potato to the cauliflower mash in paleo version. Whole family ate tomato, mash & even veggie eater ate some chicken. Lots of prep & pans-do free weeknight. Look forward to original with panko next time too.
The chicken was delicious! It was a great combination with the tomato and mash. This recipe kept me moving and on my toes! Felt like lots of work but really yummy.
this was a fun meal to make with my kiddo helping. it was pretty tasty and the honey mustard was so delicious we'll definitely make it again.
Tofu: I should have dried it out more, but it worked out well by cutting up 8 oz into nugget-sized pieces, putting them all at once into the "batter" then breadcrumbs shake-n-bake style. I saw that there was a lot of batter/crumbs left so I cut up more tofu, but that time around the crumbs were clumped and didn't cut the tofu well (we'll call this Batch 2). Batch 1 browned up beautifully in the oven, didn't stick, and was tasty. Batch 2 stuck to the pan and didn't turn out so great. Important lesson learned there. I added more spice to the breadcrumbs as well. Dipping sauce was good. I left the potato/cauliflower a bit chunky when mashing, added milk with the sour cream and a little butter plus smoked paprika. THAT was tasty. The tomato unfortunately literally made me gag. My husband said they were just OK; partially the poor quality/lack of flavor of the store-bought tomato and also the oddness of the combined ingredients. None of this was worth all the work. Fun to try though.