Copycat Chick-fil-A Chicken Minis Recipe

Make your own chicken minis at home with this copycat Chick-Fil-A recipe! Chicken nuggets get sandwiched in a fluffy roll topped with a honey butter spread in this delicious snack that’s perfect for dinner, game day, or any time you’re craving Chick-Fil-A but can’t have the real thing!

My family frequents Chick-Fil-A for their chicken nuggets. And sometimes we even make it before 10:30 (when the restaurant stops serving breakfast) to enjoy the best breakfast food you can find at fast food restaurants including chicken minis!

I don’t know why they don’t serve these all day, I’d totally order them for lunch or dinner with a side of waffle fries!

Anyway, since we don’t often actually make it there for breakfast (kids in school and all), I thought it would be fun to try making a copycat recipe for Chick Fil-A chicken minis at home so we can have them all the time when the craving strikes – and not just for breakfast!

If you’re a fan of Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets, you can totally use this recipe to just make copycat Chick-Fil A chicken nuggets instead sans the rolls. I’m personally a sandwich person but feel free to just dip these crispy chicken nuggets in ketchup, mustard, or even the best barbecue sauce!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Available every day of the week – let me tell you how many times I’ve had a craving for chicken nuggets only to remember it’s Sunday and Chick-Fil-A is closed. You can make these at home every single day of the week!
• Easy – these may look a little daunting, but they’re actually really easy to make! It’s just soak, dip, and fry. And then you’ll have delicious bite-sized Chick-Fil A eats at home!
• Versatile – I’m not normally one to eat chicken nuggets for breakfast, even if it’s a chicken biscuit sandwich, but I will eat these. The beauty of these chicken minis is that while you can eat them for breakfast, you can also eat them for lunch, dinner, or even serve as an appetizer for something like Super Bowl!

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

• Chicken breasts – you want to use boneless skinless chicken breast that’s cut into bite-sized pieces. Just think you want the size of chicken mini pieces. You really want each piece of chicken to be one bite or two small bites.
• Ritz crackers – you can use either Ritz crackers or Townhouse crackers, they both have a similar flavor, just different shape.
• Dill pickle juice – make sure it’s dill and not sweet or spicy pickle juice. I typically just take some from my jar of ill pickles but I’m sure they sell it on its own now too.
• Breadcrumbs – make sure you’re using plain, unseasoned breadcrumbs. You’ll be adding spices to create your own seasoning. Don’t want breaded nuggets? Try these grilled nuggets instead.
• Butter – you’ll want to use salted butter that is softened to room temperature so you can easily mix it with the honey.

In addition to the things in the picture above (chicken and breading ingredients), you’ll also need:

• Rolls for the chicken minis – You want to use yeast rolls that are on the smaller side like Sister Schubert’s frozen yeast rolls or Parker House style yeast rolls.
• Honey – I always recommend high-quality butter since this will be used to make the honey butter mixture that will go on top of the rolls.
• Peanut oil – this is used for frying the chicken. You can use other oils as well but this will give you the most authentic version of the chicken minis. If you don’t want to fry with oil at all, you could also cook these in the air fryer, but it’s not going to give you the same crispy coating.

How to Make Chick-fil-A Chicken Minis

This is a great recipe because it’s really hard to mess up. It’s just a lot of dipping, coating, and frying. Just don’t let your oil get too hot or you’ll end up with burnt crispy coating on the outside and under cooked chicken!

1 – Marinate the Chicken

Start by whisking together the milk and the pickle juice in a large bowl.

Once the milk and pickle juice are combined, add the small cut up chicken pieces into the juice mixture and make sure the liquid covers the chicken.

Cover the chicken and liquid either with a lid if you have one or with aluminum foil if you do not. Place the bowl into the fridge and let the chicken marinade anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. The longer the better but make sure it marinates for at least an hour.

2 – Make the Breading

While the chicken nuggets are marinating in the fridge, make the breading for the nuggets.

Crush the crackers into fine crumbs using a food processor or by placing them in a large zipper top bag and crushing with a rolling pin.

Put the cracker crumbs into a medium mixing bowl and add flour, paprika, pepper, salt, and powdered sugar.

Place the chicken pieces into a bag and add the cracker crumb mixture to the bag as well. Shake the bag so the chicken nuggets are covered in the crumb mixture.

Or you can place the chicken nuggets into the bowl of crumb mixture one by one before frying, make sure each chicken nugget is fully covered in the crumb mixture. The bag mixture works just as well and just means less mess!

3 – Fry the Chicken

Once the chicken is done marinating, add enough peanut oil to a deep frying pan so there will be enough oil to cover the chicken nuggets. You can also use a deep fryer if you have one for this step but since most people don’t, I recommend just using either a deep frying pan or dutch oven.

Turn the heat on to medium or medium-high (depending on how hot your stove runs) and heat the oil until it gets to 350 to 360 degrees.

Once it gets to the correct temperature, lower the temperature back to medium and keep it there while frying so the water doesn’t get too hot.

While the oil is heating up, bake the rolls according to the package instructions.

Now that the oil is heated up, slowly add each chicken nugget into the hot oil and let them fry until they reach a golden brown color. This typically takes about 2-3 minutes as long as the oil is 350-360 degrees.

Cook the chicken in batches, making sure not to overcrowd the nuggets in the pan.

4 – Make the Chicken Minis

While the chicken is cooking, make the honey butter by mixing the butter and honey together until the honey butter spread is smooth.

After the chicken nuggets are done and the rolls are out of the oven, add one chicken nugget to each of the rolls and either put them on a plate or in a pan.

Brush each roll with the honey butter while the rolls are warm so the butter melts into the rolls giving it a slight sweetness that goes so well with the chicken nuggets.

Add some hash browns or these air fryer french fries and serve while they’re still nice and warm! These are great with some ketchup, barbecue sauce, honey mustard, or if you have some at home, Chick-Fil-A sauce!

Expert Tips

Test the oil’s temperature with a kitchen thermometer. Don’t have a thermometer, put a small piece of bread (like just a crumb) in the oil and if it sizzles, it’s hot enough to fry. If it doesn’t, keep heating!

Don’t skip the powdered sugar. It’s what gives the nuggets their signature taste – that and the dill pickle juice!

Store leftovers in an airtight container and enjoy within three days. Reheat by placing them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet in a cold oven. Set the temperature on the oven to 350 degrees an warm up the chicken minis with the oven.

Recipe FAQs

More Breakfast Recipes

If you like this copycat chicken mini recipe, make sure to try out some of our other popular breakfast recipes!

• White sausage gravy – the perfect breakfast recipe to add to homemade drop biscuits or just eat on its own!
• Breakfast muffins – egg muffins with a hash brown crust, it’s everything you love at breakfast in one little bite!
• Breakfast casserole with bread – a delicious egg breakfast casserole topped with crunchy bread cubes!
• Breakfast party food – these fun bacon and egg rolls are the perfect easy breakfast and great for parties!
• Breakfast casserole with ham – ham, eggs, and cheese combined with crescent rolls make this one a big hit!