Hot Honey Chicken Tenders

Ingredients

• 400 g chicken mini fillets
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 80 g panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp sriracha
• 0.5 tsp chilli flakes
• 20 g butter
• coleslaw and fries, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve
• Fresh parsley, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220°C fan and slide a baking tray in to get hot — a preheated tray is what stops the bottoms going soggy. Pat the chicken fillets dry with kitchen paper; water means steam, and steam means no crunch. Season them generously with salt and pepper on both sides.
2. Mix the flour with the garlic powder, smoked paprika, a good pinch of salt and a grind of pepper in a shallow bowl. Toasting the spices into the hot oil happens later in the dredge — but giving the flour a 30-second toss in a dry pan over low heat first wakes the paprika up and stops it tasting dusty in the crust. Tip back into the bowl. Beat the egg in a second bowl, and tip the panko into a third.
3. Dredge each tender through the seasoned flour, then the egg, then press firmly into the panko so every surface is thickly coated. Press, don't dust — loose crumbs fall off in the oven.
4. Pull the hot tray out, slick it with the vegetable oil, and lay the tenders down with a clear gap between each one. Don't crowd them — touching tenders steam each other and you lose the crisp edges. Drizzle the tops generously with more oil; this is what lacquers the panko into a shattering crust. Bake for 16–18 minutes, flipping once at the halfway mark, until deeply golden and cooked through to 75°C in the thickest piece.
5. While they bake, build the hot honey. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat until it's just foaming — don't let it brown or the honey will taste scorched. Stir in the honey, sriracha and chilli flakes and let it simmer gently for about a minute, until glossy and bubbling at the edges. The garlic powder in the crust is doing the savoury work here, so this glaze stays bright and clean — pull it off the heat the moment it thickens, no longer.
6. Taste the glaze. It should ride the line between sweet, hot and salty — a small pinch of salt now ties the honey to the sriracha, and a squeeze of lemon juice cuts through the butter so it lifts rather than coats. Adjust now, not at the table.
7. Tip the hot tenders into a large bowl and pour over half the hot honey, tossing quickly so every piece is lacquered while the crust is still crackling. Keep the rest warm for dipping — it'll thicken as it sits.
8. Pile the tenders onto plates with a heap of coleslaw and a mountain of fries alongside. Scatter the chopped parsley over the top, tuck the lemon wedges in for squeezing, and put the remaining hot honey on the table in a little pot for dunking.