Low Carb Spicy Popcorn Chicken Bites

Introduction

Cubed chicken breast shaken through seasoned almond flour and baked — no frying, no breadcrumbs, and one container doing all the breading.

The breading is where this recipe lives, and the heat is built into it rather than added afterwards.

Three things are carrying it across a pound of chicken: a teaspoon of cayenne, a teaspoon of chili powder and a teaspoon and a half of red pepper flakes. That is a warm, spread-out heat rather than the sharp front-of-the-mouth kind a hot sauce gives you — the paprika, garlic and onion powder are doing as much of the work as the chilies are.

To take it up, add to the cayenne. To bring it down, halve the cayenne and the flakes and leave everything else where it is; that keeps the coating tasting of something.

Keto Popcorn Chicken Breading

One thing to set expectations on first: almond flour baked dry crisps, but it does not shatter the way a fried crumb coating does. What you get is a dry, sandy crust that holds the seasoning, not the crunch of fried chicken — and the optional broil is there to push it as far as it goes.

It was really easy to bread these spicy popcorn chicken bites, and the trick is a container with a lid. The almond flour and all of the seasonings go in the container, and the chicken goes through the egg wash about six pieces at a time before it joins them. Lid on, a good shake, and every piece comes out coated — having a lid for the container is really important if you are going to make these the same way we did.

Our skillet sesame chicken starts with the same shake, in a zip-top bag with a light dusting of xanthan gum instead of a breading, and then sears the chicken in a pan rather than baking it.

The recipe card below has the full steps, from the oven temperature to the optional minute or two under the broiler.

Dipping Sauces and Sides

Honey mustard, BBQ sauce, or ketchup? Any of these would go great with these spicy popcorn chicken bites. I prefer to dip these in a low carb low sugar honey mustard, but there are a lot of other good options. One of those options is a sugar free BBQ sauce. The tang of the BBQ sauce goes well with the spice of these chicken bites. Then, finally, there’s the classic: ketchup. But, instead of dipping these in the standard ketchup, try a reduced sugar ketchup.

If you’re making these a meal rather than a snack, serve them with our keto mac and cheese. It’s made with shirataki noodles in a creamy cheddar sauce.

You’ll find the full per-serving breakdown — calories, fat, fiber, protein, and net carbs — in the Nutrition Facts panel with the recipe below.

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Enjoy!