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Easy oven-baked Crispy Turmeric Chicken Tenders. Each crispy tender is tossed with brown rice flour, turmeric, black pepper, and shredded coconut, then oven-baked and dipped in a spicy homemade “special sauce”. Serve these turmeric tenders up for game day, or cook up some baked french fries and call these fun, yummy tenders dinner! It’s a homemade version of everyone’s favorite crispy chicken. These are the best!
I’m so excited about this recipe. These are my crispy, oven-baked turmeric chicken tenders! And they are so good!
Inspired very much by the tenders everyone orders at the LA grocery chain, Erewhon. The turmeric chicken tenders on their menu are served with their homemade special sauce. I saw these tenders on my good friend Cait’s Instagram story the other week, and the picture looked so yummy!
I messaged her to find out what she was eating, and she quickly explained. The idea of tenders sounded really fun. I knew this could be a great recipe to share ahead of the Super Bowl, so I picked her brain even more about the details.
Of course, I won’t know for sure if my tenders are similar, but what I created is a delicious, happens to be gluten-free, crispy chicken.
And the sauce! The chicken is really just a vessel for the sauce. When you read the recipe, you’ll think that the combination of ingredients is odd, but it’s one of the yummiest special sauces. Creamy with some spice, some tang, and the slightest bit of sweetness. Delish!
Let’s jump into the details
Ingredients
- chicken tenders – these are so convenient, no need to cut the chicken!
- brown rice flour – you can also use all-purpose, but I like the texture the brown rice flour provides
- onion and garlic powder
- black pepper
- buttermilk – or you can also use canned coconut milk
- fine shredded unsweetened coconut – like to use Let’s Do Organic brand or Bobs Red Mill. These two brands come finely shredded, almost crumb like.
- ground turmeric
- smoked paprika
- lime zest
- olive oil
- flaked sea salt
Ingredients – for the Special Sauce
- mayo
- buffalo sauce
- ketchup
- garlic powder
- black pepper
Special Tools!
None here. Just a bowl, a sheet pan, and another bowl for mixing up the sauce!
Steps
Step 1: bread the chicken
Toss the chicken tenders with the brown rice flour, onion powder, and garlic powder. Add a good pinch of black pepper.
Now, in a separate bowl, mix brown rice flour, the coconut, paprika, and turmeric pour over the buttermilk or I also like coconut milk, but not that will lend to more coconut flavoring.
Toss the chicken until a thick paste-like batter forms around each tender. It’s OK if it’s a bit chunky.
Step 2: baking
Next, arrange the chicken on a baking sheet. I like to grease my baking sheets with olive oil. I think using oil instead of parchment gives you crispier pieces of chicken.
Arrange the chicken in an even layer, don’t overcrowd the pan. There should be some batter left in the bowl, set this aside.
Drizzle each tender with olive oil, then bake until the breading begins to get crispy all around!
Now, pull the chicken out and spoon over the remaining batter left in the bowl. These clumps will get crispy! Drizzle the chicken once more with olive oil. Don’t skimp using the olive oil, this really helps the coating get crispy. Bake another few minutes, get them crispy all around!
Step 3: make the sauce
While you have the chicken baking, mix up the sauce. Use your favorite mayo or vegan mayo and mix in some buffalo sauce, ketchup, garlic powder, and black pepper.
Step 4: serve
When the chicken comes out of the oven and it’s sizzling, sprinkle with some flaked sea salt.
Put the special sauce in a bowl for dipping, and serve the chicken up with lots of sauce. SO YUMMY! And fun too!
The chicken has just the right amount of crisp. You might think it’s fried, but it’s not!
The sauce is spicy, creamy, and tangy. It’s really great with the turmeric chicken. To finish the meal off, I always serve with home fries. Such a fun, easy dinner or game day appetizer!
Looking for more recipes? Here are a few to try:
Sheet Pan Honey Garlic Chicken and Feta Potatoes
Sheet Pan Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Lastly, if you make this Crispy Turmeric Chicken Tenders, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And, of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Crispy Turmeric Chicken Tenders
Servings: 6
Calories Per Serving: 494 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Watch the How-To Reel
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless chicken tenders
- 2 tablespoons + 3/4 cup brown rice flour
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- flaked sea salt and black pepper
- 3/4 -1 cup buttermilk
- 1/4-1/2 cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2-1 teaspoon ground turmeric, use to your taste
- 2 teaspoons lime zest
- extra virgin olive oil, for brushing/drizzling
Spicy Sauce
- 1/2 cup mayo
- 1/4 cup buffalo sauce
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 450° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or rub with olive oil. 2. In a bowl, combine the chicken, 2 tablespoons brown rice flour, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper. Toss well to coat. 3. In a separate bowl, mix 3/4 cup brown rice flour, the coconut, paprika, turmeric, and lime zest. Pour over 3/4 cup buttermilk and mix until a thick batter forms. Add additional buttermilk to loosen if needed. The batter should be thick.4. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Place each piece on the prepared baking sheet. Do not overcrowd the baking sheet. Reserve any batter left in the bowl. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil. Bake 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, spoon the remaining batter in the bowl onto the chicken. Drizzle again with oil. Bake another 15 minutes until crisp all around. Sprinkle with sea salt. 5. To make the sauce: combine all ingredients in a bowl.6. Serve the chicken with the sauce. Enjoy!
Notes
Important Note: I have updated this recipe due the amount of trouble many have had. I apologize for anyone is if finding this recipe a challenge! This has been tested and made many times now. We really enjoy the chicken as I have written!
This post was originally published on January 30, 2025
I tried the recipe after it was updated, and these still did not turn out good. 🙁 It was a soggy mess. Very disappointing & waste of ingredients/money. This recipe clearly has not been thoroughly tested.
my family loved these!
Hey Jennifer,
Amazing! So glad to hear this recipe was a hit, I appreciate you making it! Have the best week:) xT
I question the legitimacy of this recipe being tested “many times now.” I don’t understand how from the time it was published just a few days ago, until now, it has undergone 4 different recipe edits & has been thoroughly tested. With the price of groceries, I cannot afford to spend money on items for a recipe that clearly has not been thoroughly tested.
I sadly made this before reading all the comments. Even though my instincts told me otherwise I added more oil and batter after 10 minutes like the directions said. It did NOT crisp up, it was just soggy and greasy. I added salt to the dry ingredients instead of at the end (which was an odd suggestion) so they weren’t as flavorless as others have said but the texture was so awful we couldn’t finish these. I see now the recipe has been edited but I highly doubt the changes are going to fix the biggest issues with this.
These were tasteless on their own. The sauce was not enough to enhance them. Not your best recipe. But all your other recipes hit the mark most of the time!
Terrible recipe. Did not get crispy and definitely did not look like the photos above.
Like a lot of others here, this recipe did not turn out. Kicking myself for not reading the comments first. I attempted these with the recipe that is showing on (2/2/25). I think it needs cornmeal or panko, as well as egg, to hold things together. Just using buttermilk and shredded coconut does NOT bind the breading enough.
I’m pretty annoyed at the complete waste of $$ I spent trying to make these. I have had the Erewhon Tenders and LOVE THEM so I was super excited to see this recipe on the blog. I’m confused how the UPDATED version still turned out so bad?? Is no one testing this recipe? 🙁
PS. I found some TikTok videos with copycat Erewhon recipes that look like they turned out really well! All of them are using egg & cornmeal to help bind the breading, and they are marinating the chicken in the coconut milk overnight. For anyone reading, I’d try looking into those videos before attempting this recipe.
I have tried posting my review twice now, but the page reloads and I have to rewrite. Not going to rewrite my whole comment for a third time so I will simply say these did not turn out, batter is soggy and never crisps, flavor is non existent id double or triple all seasonings amounts. Do not make these, total fail.
Ok I see the original recipe I made and this one posted have now changed. The recipe I made had 1/2 teaspoon for all seasonings, these have now increased, and the original said coconut milk or buttermilk. Also she changed amount of shredded coconut. Ugh, it would be nice if the recipe was fully tested and correct before posting. Perhaps these changes will make a better end result, if someone tries the corrected version please write a review!
The recipe and ingredients have changed at least 3 times since originally posting. It still isn’t going to work. Erewhon brines theirs in the coconut cream and buttermilk, followed by dredging in a combo of cornmeal and rice flour and then frying in avocado oil.
The amended recipe is worse than the first, she said the clump the batter on the chicken with your hands, now she is saying reserve some of the batter and after flipping drizzle it over the chicken! I’m starting to wonder if HBH even made these. Erewhon marinades them in the wet ingredients over night then dredges in cornmeal,rice flour and coconut shreds and seasonings and deep fries them. Wet batter will not work for oven frying, these would need deep frying to ever turn out.
Absolutely disgusting, and a waste of ingredients. I wish you would test your recipes more before you release them, and please eat them yourself first! I can guarantee you wouldn’t have released this one if you’d actually eaten it yourself.
As always, your site just crashed and my entire comment was deleted. Cannot emphasize how enraging this is.
It was a suggestion for this recipe, but I don’t care enough to retype it. FIX THIS WEBSITE PLEASE.
If you’re wondering why this recipe doesn’t work, it’s because the tenders in the photo have clearly been double or triple dredged (keeping wet and dry batter ingredients seperate) and deep fried, with the coconut omitted from the batter. An oven bake (let alone without flipping midway or baking on a rack) will not yield 365 degree even and deep crisp. Hope that helps!
So glad I read these reviews! I was set on making these today until I scrolled down. Sounds like this recipe needs to go back to the test kitchen for a few more rounds! The Erewhon ones are my fav but I think $25/lb. Honestly by the time I buy all these ingredients it’s probably the same price.
Sauce was the only good part- that’s why I’m giving to stars instead of one. The breading stuck to the pan when I went to flip. I really really greased my pan too. Breading never got crispy, it was soft and a weird texture. I think with a wet batter frying is the best option to get a brown crispy breading.
Why she uses rice flour and coconut for baked “fried” chicken makes zero sense to to me. Rice flour tends to be more sticky/gloppy in general.
I made this for my husband…unfortunately they came out kind of gooey. Ugh, I spent slot on ingredients too 🙁
I don’t know where I went wrong.
You didn’t go wrong. Dry ingredients start reacting to wet ingredients as soon as they hit the mixture. Which is why wet and dry ingredients are supposed to be kept seperate to control wet v dry and potentially create layers. This recipe does not include flipping (though I doubt you could even flip without the bottom batter falling right off) or baking on a rack so no air can circulate on the bottom. The result = gloop. Also oven baking is slower than frying, wet batters need much higher heat, over less time, to crisp without going soggy. There are no in-progress photos between marinating the chicken (and yes, it’s a marinade) and the finished product because the finished product was deep fried. It’s basic food science (which if you didn’t know before, now you do)— just don’t blame yourself 🙂
I would give this zero stars if I could, waste of ingredients & money.
Why be so aggressive? Give some constructive feedback. Bet you haven’t even made them but are hating on the post because she’s taken down comments on the Sunday posts.
Bea, if you check the timestamps, you’ll see many comments came before she announced her dear diary entry comments were going to be turned off. People are allowed to dislike her recipes & voice that they didn’t turn out. Hope this helps! 🙂
Bea, given the price of groceries these days people have a right to be annoyed and aggressive when a recipe that’s supposed to be well tested doesn’t work out and wastes ingredients. Also, not everyone is knowledgeable or experienced enough to offer constructive criticism, which is usually ignored or deleted anyway, to a “recipe developer” who is supposed to the knowledgeable one. The multiple edits to the original posted recipe tells me that Tieghan is basically flying by the seat of her pants here and hoping this somehow works out, rather than insuring it does before she posts it.
Hey there, Joanne? is it? I personally LOVED this recipe and created the most yummy tasting chicken i think i’ve ever had. Maybe it’s time we retire from the kitchen if we can’t adjust simple recipes with our own knowledge like so.. wouldn’t ya say? 😊 enjoy your zero star chicken:)
Hey Londy, is it? The point of a recipe is to be able to follow it, not have to make 50 adjustments to make it remotely edible. It seems like the recipe isn’t so “simple” when even Tieghan has adjusted it several times. By your comments, surely you aren’t suggesting it’s time for her to retire from the kitchen, are we? Many people are having issues with this recipe.
And I didn’t enjoy my zero star chicken, hence my review!
Hi Tieghan! I see you deleted my comment where I declared suspicion that London is really you. Seems a bit odd that you would do that…unless it’s true?
But yet she kept London’s unkind comment up…😅
You’re lying, London, Or you adjusted the recipe on your own. WHICH YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DO.