If you are lucky you live near a Whataburger, if not, try this copycat recipe for Whataburger Chicken Strips. Whataburger Chicken Strips are simply delicious.
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If you live in the South, you have the opportunity to enjoy Whataburger. Whataburger is a fast-food restaurant in many Southern states.
I like Whataburger because the food is made to order, so you can customize anything the way you want. For years you could request menu items that were officially discontinued from the menu. You gotta love that they care enough to make the food you want.
Their chicken strips are very tasty. The breading tastes very good, and they are easy to make. So you can enjoy them anytime.
What makes these fried chicken tenders special? The chicken tenderloins are soaked in buttermilk. This makes the Whataburger Chicken Strips tender and extra flavorful.
The breading is also seasoned well, so these don’t taste bland as chicken breasts can. You may want to pair these with Texas Toast.
Table of Contents
Whataburger Chicken Strips Recipe Ingredients
Here’s a list of what you need:
- Chicken tenderloins
- All-purpose flour
- Salt
- Ground black pepper
- Garlic salt
- Buttermilk
- Oil for frying
Unlock the Secret to Delicious Whataburger Chicken Strips
These chicken strips are deep-fried. You can make these in a deep fryer like my favorite T-fal FR8000 Oil Filtration Ultimate EZ Clean Easy to clean 3.5-Liter Fry Basket Stainless Steel Immersion Deep Fryer or you can fry these in an iron skillet.
How to Make Whataburger Chicken Strips
- Soak chicken tenderloins in buttermilk for at least 2 hours or overnight.
- Heat oil to 350 degrees.
- Whisk together flour, salt, pepper, and garlic salt in a bowl.
- Add buttermilk into the flour mixture and stir to combine.
- Coat the chicken tenderloins with the batter and place them on a wire rack to dry a little before frying.
- Gently place a few chicken tenders into the hot oil.
- Drain fried chicken strips on a clean wire rack.
- Serve with chicken gravy or honey mustard sauce.
You may want to serve these homemade chicken strips with honey mustard or homemade chicken gravy. Many fast-food restaurants use a pre-packaged gravy mix like Pioneer Brand Country Gravy Mix.
Love Chicken Strips? Try these recipes!
Favorite Fast Food Copycat Recipes
- Chick Fil A Sandwich Recipe
- Chicken Salad Chick Chicken Salad
- Copycat Chick Fil A Nuggets
- Culvers Burgers
- Dominos Cinnamon Bread Twists
- KFC French Fries
- Long John Silver’s Fish Batter Recipe
- Steak N Shake Chili
- Wendys Frostys
- Whataburger Patty Melt
Check out more of my easy chicken tender recipes and the best fast food recipes here on CopyKat!
Whataburger Chicken Strips
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds chicken tenderloins
- 2½ cups buttermiilk
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoon salt
- 1½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon garlic salt
- oil for frying
Instructions
- Soak chicken strips in buttermilk for about 2 hours before preparing the tender strips. Soak overnight for the best results.
- Make the seasoned flour by combining flour, salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Stir until it is well blended.
- Make a batter of the seasoned flour and buttermilk by pouring in about ½ cup of the buttermilk into the flour. You want the batter a little shaggy.
- Coat the chicken with the batter and place it on a rack and allow it to dry. The batter may fall off when cooking if you don't allow the batter to dry a bit before frying.
- Discard remaining buttermilk.
- Heat oil to 350 degrees.
- Gently place 3 or 4 breaded chicken tenderloins into the hot oil. Cook chicken tenders a few at a time until they are golden brown.
- Drain the fried chicken tenders on a clean wire rack.
- Serve with gravy or honey mustard sauce.
Elaine Van Hook
Never been to that restaurant but wanted to try – I think in the recipe if you call the flour/buttermilk mixture a coating rather than a batter it would be quite helpful. I would have understood that to be a dry, crumb mixture. I added more buttermilk to get a “batter” since that’s what it called for and it was a bit of a mess. They tasted good, but it would have been better with a dry crust on the outside. And I realize you show that in your video but I never watch videos of recipes. Thanks for the recipe.
Stephanie
Thanks for letting me know Elaine. That batter/breading is kind of a mess.
Samantha
Thank you for this recipe, I don’t near a Whataburger any longer! This was really close.
Katie B
Just found this! Now all I need to do is make some buttermilk biscuits and order honey butter from HEB and I can have my favorite meal from there… and it’ll do until I travel back that to the promised land (aka whataburger territory).
Stephanie
I love this 😉 The promised land. When I moved away I was Tex Mex cheese enchiladas more than anything.
CJ Hickey
what type of dip do you recommend for this?
Stephanie
I typically get the gravy when I order this.
Lou Ann Dunn
Thank you Stephanie! This is my all time favorite fast food meal. I’ve always wanted to try it! Thank you so much!
Kelly
The extra buttermilk is to soak the raw tenders in overnight.
Sean
Why does the ingredients list call for 2 1/2 cups f buttermilk but the instructions only use 1/2 cup?
Jackie
that may be a typo in the instructions. Recipe calls for 2 cups of flour. 1/2 cup buttermilk doesn’t seem like enough to make a batter of that much flour. I would add in the buttermilk till you get a nice batter then stop adding it.
Stephanie
You are trying to make a shaggy batter. The recipe is intentional. You may want to review the video, as I may have failed to convey the reasoning behind the method in the written recipe.
anna
Oh this looks absolutely divine. I’m going to have to try this
emilly
Yippee! So excited to read your post. I’ve been cooking from your recipe