Nashville Hot Chicken Bites
These Nashville Hot Chicken Bites are a quick and easy dinner or meal prep starter that’s full of flavor! My husband and I love these so much we made them twice this week. Just a reminder that Nashville Hot Chicken is, well, hot. These chicken bites have great depth of flavor, and they are (in my opinion) perfectly spicy. I originally tried making these with 1 ½ teaspoons of cayenne, but it gave me the hiccups after the first bite, so I dialed the heat back a bit! As written, these are spicy is a good way, with a slow burn that hits you in the aftertaste. I recommend pairing these with pickles (the flavors go so well together) and either bread, rice, a bun, yogurt dipping sauce, a glass of milk, or something else to cool your tongue a bit if needed!
This dish is cooked in the same manner as my Blackened Chicken Bites, so if you’re already a fan of those, you’ll want to try these as well! The method is super easy on the stovetop and comes together quickly for a weeknight dinner. I often buy a big pack of chicken breasts at the store and then trim them down to make 5-6 oz cutlets to use in recipes. Everything I cut off to make the cutlets gets cut into chunks to make chicken bites! It’s easy to weigh out 1 lb or 1.5 lb of chicken chunks and freeze them for later in a quart size freezer bag. That way, I always have some on hand!
When I weighed my finished Nashville Hot Chicken Bites they were 12.4 ounces total. I decided to call it 4 servings of 3 ounces each (which would be 12 ounces) because it’s simpler, but just an FYI that your servings may be slightly bigger than 3 ounces. With that said, each filling 3(ish) ounce serving of Chicken is just 183 calories, 4 gram of carbs, or 2 WW (Weight Watchers) Points! To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!
Looking for more tasty, lightened up, Chicken recipes? Check out my Blackened Chicken Bites, Greek Chicken Bites, Apple and Brie Stuffed Chicken, Slow Cooker Chicken and Stuffing, Strawberry Balsamic Grilled Chicken, Ricotta Stuffed Chicken Bake, Lemon Garlic Chicken and Beans Skillet, Cream Cheese and Herb Stuffed Chicken, Tuscan Olive Chicken, Crispy Cheddar Chicken with Cream Sauce, Baked Chicken Tenders, Pimento Cheese Stuffed Chicken, Cream Cheese Stuffed Everything Chicken, and so many more in the Chicken category of my recipe index!
Nashville Hot Chicken Bites
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
- 2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 lb raw boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into small bite-sized pieces
Instructions
- In a small dish, stir together the cayenne pepper, brown sugar, flour, paprika, chili powder, salt, and garlic powder. Place the cut up chicken pieces into a gallon zip-seal plastic bag and add the spice mix. Seal the bag and shake/massage the contents until the chicken pieces are coated with the spices.
- Add the oil to a large sauté pan/walled skillet and bring over med-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken pieces (you don’t want to overcrowd the pan, so depending on the size of your skillet you may want to work in two batches instead of one) and stir to break them up and coat them in the oil. Cook the chicken for 7-8 minutes, stirring every couple minutes (you don’t want to stir super frequently because the chicken needs time to brown and get a “crust” on each side). Once the chicken is cooked through and browned on the outside, remove from heat and serve.
Notes
5 per (3 ounce) serving (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition info below)
Could you cook these in an air fryer?
Anyone cook in the air fryer? Come on Emily everyone has an air fryer now!!
Ouch. Doesn’t everyone have a stovetop?
I’m sure you could! I haven’t tried it that way yet, but I’ll report back if I do. Let me know if you try it!
Nay Nay – I do not have an air fryer, never even used one. Stove top and oven for me!
Only an oven for me, too. I really appreciate that this isn’t an air fryer recipe!
This is dinner tonight! 🙂
I hope you love them!
We all agreed we can add this into our rotation!
Can’t wait to try these!
I will air fry them tonight with no oil in my ninja grill and let everyone know. I am making the kids real wings so these will be perfect for me to get the same flavors!
I put them in my ninja air fryer/ninja grill with 2 large chicken breasts so doubled recipe. I cooked them on 390 for 12 minutes, stirring them every 4 minutes
Can you bake these without the oil?
Do you think this would turn out just as good replacing flour with cornstarch?
I was wondering the same thing because we are wheat free and can’t do the flour!
I bet they would–I’ve seen recipes for crispy chicken that use cornstarch or rice flour instead of wheat flour.
These were awesome! Easy, quick and so tasty! Thank you for a great low points recipe!
Made these for dinner tonight. Outstanding! They are hot as promised (my lips are burning). I will definitely make them again. I may consider cutting the chicken into bigger pieces and making a Nashville hot chicken sandwich.
It would be 4-4 ounce raw pieces right? I’m interested in doing bigger pieces too for a sandwich. Just making sure I’m thinking correctly so I get my points right. I think I’m going to make this for next week.
Made these last night in the air fryer! So good!!!! This will definitely be in our dinner rotation/ meal prep rotation!!
Delicious! I must be one of the few without an air fryer. So, I pulled out one of my handy-dandy cast iron skillets. It was great for getting the chicken really crispy. Thanks, Emily, for a definite “keeper”.
So happy to hear you loved it!
I made these for lunches this week and oh my! They’re going straight on my ‘go-to/favorites’ list!!
I’m so happy you loved them!!
Trying this tonight! But, when I enter the nutritional info into my tracker it says 6 points on Green.
Could you swap smoked paprika for the regular? I’m going to give this a try soon!
Made these the other night and the were sooooo freaking delicious! They got the husband seal of approval. This will definitely be going into our regular recipe rotation! Thanks for making such delicious recipes.
My family and I tried these the other night for the first time. They are really delicious, and both my teenage daughters and my husband loved them. My husband was asking were the spice was at because I left out the cayenne, but the rest of us thought they were yummy. Next time, I will add the cayenne to half, so he can have his heat. Thanks for the awesome recipe.
Delicious! It was a hit with my husband and all of the kids (15, 13 and 8).
I crave spicy/hot but especially something like wings … When I saw this recipe, I had to try it but was a bit intimidated by the amount of cayenne! I made as written and am totally in love!!! They are not overbearingly hot but as you stated, full of flavor and perfectly spicy! I will definitely make this again … and again … and next time remember to have a pickle on the side!!! This recipe is simple, healthy and will be perfect to make the next time I am craving wings!
Tried these tonight as I LOVED your other chicken bite recipes and we loved them. The flavor was so delicious and paired perfectly with rice and some marinated cucumbers to help with the heat! Thank you for sharing all your recipes!
I’m so happy you are loving the chicken bites as much as I am! I definitely foresee more flavors in the future 🙂
I made these tonight, and my picky son approved! I did cut the cayenne pepper back a bit, but these were yummy! thank you!
one of my fave, highly recommend
Sounds delicious. .can I bake these in the oven and if so, what temp/time
This recipe is simple and INCREDIBLE!! I made them and they instantly became a a part of the household regular rotation. Perfect amount of spice and heat
Delicious! Just the right amount of spicy as others have said. I didn’t have cayenne pepper, so I subbed Trader Joe ghost pepper grinder, but used a little less. 2 thumbs up from my 14 year old grandson and me too! I used some low-fat ranch with it and it was so good with it!
Loved this! Easy to prepare, great flavor, and a nice amount of heat. My husband loved it too.
I made these tonight and man were they good! I did cut back the cayenne to 1/2 tsp because I’m a wimp…also I used smoked paprika because I love the smoky flavor. I’m actually excited to eat these again for lunch tomorrow! I can already see myself craving this recipe.
These are amazing! I used them to top a salad of chopped romaine hearts and yogurt ranch dressing (I was out of blue cheese, don’t take away my Buffalo card!). Whole thing was 4 personal points bc of quantities that I used, but since I had so much lettuce in my salad it balanced back out to zero! I did sub the brown sugar for Swerve points-free substitute but it still turned out perfect. This one is a keeper for meal prepping salad lunches!
My family has enjoyed other recipes from Emily, but this one was a little disappointing for us. The chicken in my opinion was overwhelmed with dry peppery spices. The sweetness was non-existent. Just wished there was a better balance between spicy and sweet. There didn’t seem to be any sweet taste.
Loved this spicy chicken recipe. Served it with rice, green beans, celery sticks and ranch dipping sauce. Thank you for sharing it.
FABULOUS – dipped them in lite ranch dressing and enjoyed!
Made these in the air fryer (to lessen the oil) and omg even better–great recipe!
08/03/2023 made this for tea for me and my son and we both enjoyed it. I added some courgette yellow and red bell pepper to the chicken and served it on a bed of basmati rice and it turned out really nice will definitely make again thank you for sharing your recipe
Really good. Served with pickles and totally hit the Nashville Hot chicken notes. Def spicy! Will make it again!
I made these tonight and received high praise from my 17 year old picky son – will definitely make them again! And again 🙂
PS: I used chicken that I had brined with dill pickle juice from your other recipe because I can’t do spicy !
This is one of my favorite recipes and yes it is great in the air fryer. I do 390 degrees for 10 minutes shaking 1/2 through. I also lightly spray with olive oil spray initially. We have to make two batches so I keep the first batch warm in the over (275) while the 2nd batch is cooking.
These are spicy so we serve ranch on the side to dip and usually broccoli or a salad. Thanks for the amazing recipe!