Chicken tenderloins are one of my favorite protein sources to cook. They’re easy to work with, fast cooking, and just as lean as whole chicken breasts. And once you try these buttermilk baked chicken tenderloins, you’ll know how flavorful they can be!
This recipe makes 10 spicy buttermilk chicken tenders, each with 16 grams of protein, 1 gram of carbs, virtually zero fat, and 0 WW Smart Points! I’ll walk you through the recipe (it’s super easy) and how to make the Greek yogurt ranch dipping sauce below. And you can find the printable recipe card at the end of the post.
Baked Chicken Tenderloins Recipe Walkthrough
Similar to my pan fried naked chicken tenders recipe, marinating is the key to juicy and flavorful chicken tenderloins. If you’re marinade averse, not all hope is lost.
Marinating for as little as 30 minutes will go a long way! Since chicken tenderloins are smaller, marinades work their magic faster than in recipes like my crispy buttermilk pan fried chicken breast.
Spicy Buttermilk Marinade Ingredients
- low fat buttermilk
- hot sauce of your choice (I used Cholula)
- paprika, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper*
*If you’re spice sensitive, you can swap the cayenne for equal parts paprika.
Stir everything together and go straight in with the chicken tenderloins. Give it all a whirl to fully coat the chicken, cover, and refrigerate for about 2 hours.
Once the chicken tenderloins and marinade have gotten to know one another, it’s time to bake. Add the chicken to a baking sheet with a wire rack and sprinkle with additional salt, pepper, and cayenne (or paprika to reduce the heat).
If you don’t have a wire rack, no worries! Bake them directly on the sheet. This may slightly accelerate the cook time so check them a bit earlier.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the chicken tenderloins reach an internal temperature of 165F. Like a good marinade, having a food thermometer on hand is another key to juicy chicken that’s never over cooked, dry, and tough. You can check out the food thermometer I use, along with all my other kitchen tools, on my Amazon storefront.
More Flavor Ideas
If you’d like to make your baked chicken tenderloins with a different seasoning blend, check out my blackened chicken tenders, buffalo chicken thighs, pulled BBQ chicken, or my post with 7 ways to make air fryer chicken nuggets. These recipes have seasoning blends you could just rub on chicken tenderloins and bake.
Important Chicken Tenderloins Note
I’ll add that chicken tenderloins can vary in size. You’ll notice this recipe calls for 1 1/2 pounds of chicken tenderloins and yields 10 chicken tenders. Go by weight, not the number of tenders. And if you have more tenderloins, that means they’re smaller and will cook a bit faster.
And that’s it! You’re ready to serve.
If you’re not a fan of chicken tenderloins, you can cut chicken breast into strips or use a pre-cut chicken breast option like I used for my garlic parmesan air fryer chicken tenders.
Homemade Greek Yogurt Ranch Dipping Sauce
Speaking of serving, here’s a quick and easy ranch dip that goes great with these baked chicken tenders:
- 1/2 C (113g) Fat Free Greek Yogurt
- 2 Tbsp (30mL) Skim Milk (or any milk)
- 1 Tbsp Ranch Seasoning
Mix it up and serve! You can easily scale the recipe up and save some for later in the refrigerator.
And since you’ll have ranch seasoning on hand, you might as well make my air fryer ranch potato wedges or the wedges from my spicy baked chicken thighs and potatoes recipe as a side dish.
Other Side Dish Ideas
Here’s a shortlist of my favorite sides for chicken:
- Air Fryer Potatoes and Carrots
- Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts
- Garlic Parmesan Carrot Fries
- Citrusy Garlic Air Fryer Green Beans
- Crispy Air Fryer Radishes
And that should cover it. If you have questions about these spicy buttermilk baked chicken tenderloins, drop a comment below or join my Facebook group along with 17,000+ other home cooks who’d be happy to help!
Spicy Buttermilk Baked Chicken Tenderloins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Tenderloins*
- 3/4 C 180mL Low Fat Buttermilk
- 2 Tbsp 30g Hot Sauce
- 1 Tbsp Paprika
- 1 tsp Kosher Salt, divided
- 1 tsp Black Pepper, divided
- 1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper, divided (optional)
Instructions
- For the Marinade
- Whisk the buttermilk, hot sauce, paprika, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper together in a resealable container. Add the chicken tenderloins and marinate for at least 2 hours.
- Baking the Chicken Tenderloins
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Transfer the chicken tenderloins from the marinade to a baking sheet with a wire rack.** Discard the remaining marinade.
- Mix the remaining 1/2 tsp of salt and pepper with the remaining 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper to sprinkle on top of the tenderloins.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the chicken tenderloins reach an internal temperature of 165F. Remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for at least 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
For Air Fried Chicken Tenders
Using my Nashville Hot Air Fryer Chicken Nuggets as a guide, 8-10 minutes at 400ºF should do the trick. Though you’ll likely need to cut the recipe in half or cook in two batches unless you have a BIG air fryer.Nutrition Facts Notes
- Each chicken tenderloin has 0 Smart Points.
- The nutrition facts include the marinade (even though it’s discarded) since there’s no way to accurately track what’s absorbed/discarded. As always, nutrition facts are an estimate.
This is one of my go to recipes every week!!!
What can you use in this recipe if you don’t have buttermilk?
You could mix some fat free Greek yogurt with any type of milk. I’d go half and half to equal the 3/4 C of buttermilk so about 90mL of milk and 90g of yogurt.
Subbing for Celiac
For this one, do not be afraid to salt the chicken! I didn’t salt this well enough, but they still turned out very well! I could not find low fat buttermilk so I just used regular. I see now you could use greek yogurt and milk and I feel like that would work great! No gluten free subbing needed here!
Subbing for Celiac
For this one, do not be afraid to salt the chicken! I didn’t salt this well enough, but they still turned out very well! I could not find low fat buttermilk so I just used regular. I see now you could use greek yogurt and milk and I feel like that would work great! No gluten free subbing needed here!
Until i read this recipe i didn’t know that low fat buttermilk existed, thank you mason! The taste in these is great, prettt mild so depending on my mood i add more or follow the recipe exactly. They made great leftovers as is or in a buffalo ranch style salad. Prep and cook were super easy and reasonable.
This is the only recipe I have ever purchased buttermilk for and I would do it again. My only complaint is that I don’t have a wire rack that is oven safe, so I feel like mine weren’t as good as they could’ve been. However, the flavor was incredible. I think I just left too much of the marinade on the chicken when I added to my pan to bake. They definitely tasted better than they looked.I have already added a wire rack for baking to my shopping list to try these again!
I made these tonight and they were stellar!! But i did not have low-fat buttermilk so i subbed it for Two Good Plain Greek yogurt in the marinade! Same super amazing and also added more protein so extra bonus!!
This entire thing took me about ten minutes to prep and get together. Was super easy and tastes great. Not too spicy, and the macros are pretty awesome if you ask me. Definitely one to prep and eat a few days!
This was a crowd pleaser. Tasty and easy prep.
If there’s anything about me, I LOVE spicy and i LOVE chicken so this recipe truly made me feel good about what I was putting into my body, while also truly enjoying the taste. I highly recommend if you are someone who loves spicy. I also thought the greek yogurt ranch was good!