5 Ingredient Gluten Free Buffalo Chicken Tenders (Paleo, Whole 30, Keto)
These gluten free buffalo chicken tenders are only five ingredients and come together in less than 30 minutes. That’s what I call a fricken win! They say every seven years every cell in your body has been completely replaced and we are literally an entirely new person. Because we are brand new, we can develop new or outgrow old allergies. Our taste buds can change too! Growing up, I HATED spicy foods. Black pepper was too spicy for me. That’s how spice adverse I was. I wouldn’t even think to try a hot wing. Then one day, I just started craving buffalo wings, and that craving hasn’t stopped since. I could eat wings all day every day! But they are often loaded with grease and gluten, fried in dense caloric oil. This simple recipe says goodbye to all the garbage for show-stealing healthier gluten-free buffalo chicken tenders!

The Ingredients
- Chicken – You can swap out chicken tenders for chicken wings, which I’ve made the same way several dozen times. But instead of coating in egg and almond meal, you coat in baking powder to give them that crispy wing coating we all love 🙂
- Hot sauce – There are plenty of brands out there, but I happen to love Franks Red Hot. Not a sponsored post in any way. I am a big fan who really loves them! If you do choose a different brand, make sure it is simply hot sauce. Sometimes they sneak in sugar or all kinds of weird ingredients. The New Primal also has healthy, delicious buffalo sauce that is whole 30 & Paleo compliant.
- Almond Meal – Almond meal is almond flour, except they haven’t taken the skins off the almonds. Because there are skins, you’ll see dark specks in it. I love it because it is significantly cheaper than almond flour, but you can’t tell the difference, besides when you look at it. However, be careful baking with it. Some finicky recipes, like macaroons, require the super ground flour. Almond meal will not work here.
- Ghee- Ghee is simply a clarified butter. Why is it whole 30 and Paleo compliant if it’s dairy? Ghee is lactose-free, and that is usually the party of dairy that is inflammatory for most people. However, some people are allergic to whey protein in dairy products, so it’s not technically dairy-free for people who have a severe dairy, or a whey allergy.

Tips, Recs, Swaps
- n my opinion, Air fryer is 100% the way to go for this recipe. However, if you don’t have one (yet), you can make these in the oven. Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes. Below is the air fryer that I use and LOVE! It was on sale when I was writing this post. It still might be 🙂
- When you are at the egging and “breading” part, if you use one hand to dip the egg and the other hand only in the almond meal, it will keep you from getting breading coated on your hands and needing to wash them every minute.
- While these are a great dish on their own, play around and have some fun with them. I absolutely love turning them into Buffalo Chicken Salad, just toss over lettuce with some veggies! pictured below.


5 Ingredient Gluten Free Buffalo Chicken Tenders
Equipment
- Air Fryer
Ingredients
- 1-1.5 lbs Chicken Tenderloin Strips
- 1 Egg
- ¼ Cup Almond meal or almond flour
- 2 Tablespoons Ghee or Butter if not paleo
- ¼ Cup Franks Red Hot or similar hot sauce
Instructions
- Whisk egg and set up a plate with the almond meal next to the egg bowl. Dip chicken in egg, transfer to plate with almond meal, flipping tenders to make sure they are coated completely. Set aside, repeat with all tenders.
- Set air fryer to “Air Fry” mode, cook at 390 for 12-15 minutes*
- When air fryer has 2 minutes left, add Ghee and hot sauce to bowl and microwave for 1 minute 30 seconds, remove and stir well.
- Transfer to chicken to a bowl and add hot sauce mixture, coat chicken well. Enjoy with blue cheese or ranch.
Notes
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