Macro Friendly Chick-fil-A Original Chicken Sandwich Recipe

Hi friends! Jon here. I’m writing a guest post for Lyssy this week to kick off a new series focused on air fryer recipes. For those of you that don’t already own an air fryer, I highly recommend that you add this to your kitchen repertoire. Although it may seem steep to spend up to $100 for one appliance, we have gotten a ton of use out of this thing in the short time that we have owned it.

If you know me then you know I spend way too much time researching this type of stuff. To save you the trouble (and potentially hours of research), I have linked the air fryer we used here -> Yedi Air Fryer.

We are going to start this series with a copycat recipe for a sandwich that is near and dear to my heart, the Chick-fil-A Original Chicken Sandwich (or the CFAOCS for short).

Now you may be asking yourself, “wait, Jon, aren’t there hundreds of copycat recipes for this sandwich online already?” The answer to that question in one word is “yes”. However, unlike most copycat recipes for the CFAOCS, this recipe will NOT include any breading, eggs or oil and WILL include the macros for the sandwich. This blog was founded with a health focus, after all. So if you want a healthy version of the CFAOCS, then this recipe is for you.

Here is the short list of ingredients you will need for one sandwich:

• 6 oz of uncooked chicken tenders (we made 14 oz since we made multiple sandwiches)
• All-purpose chicken seasoning
• Garlic powder
• Cayenne pepper powder
• White hamburger bun
• Sliced pickles
• Zero calorie butter spray
• Nonstick cooking spray

The first step is to season the chicken tenders. Although this may seem simple, this is probably the place where the recipe can go HORRIBLY WRONG if you are not careful. Your seasoning should be 80% of the all-purpose chicken seasoning, 15% garlic powder and 5% cayenne pepper powder. You need to LIGHTLY SEASON the tenders. If you over season, then you are going to have a bad time, and you should pray for your blood pressure. Again, LIGHTLY SEASON the tenders. Trust that the air fryer will do the work.

Once the tenders have been seasoned, spray the basket of the air fryer with the nonstick cooking spray and evenly distribute the tenders in the basket. Then cook the tenders at 360* for 25 minutes. Our air fryer has a chicken setting which makes cooking them that much easier.

Flip the tenders halfway through.

When you have about 10 minutes left, you can start cooking the buns. Spray the buns with zero calorie butter spray and cook on medium heat, flipping the buns every minute and cooking each bun for no more than 3 minutes.

Once the buns are toasted and the chicken is done then it is time to construct the sandwich. Add roughly 5 oz of cooked chicken tenders, plus 2-3 pickles to the toasted bun. And just like that, you have the copycat sandwich.

I made a few other sandwiches with other toppings, but I think I like the copycat CFAOCS the best!

I promised the macros earlier, and here they are:

So if you are still asking yourself hypothetical questions then you may say, “Jon, I went through all that work to save 20 calories, are you crazy?” My rebuttal to that is that you are getting 22 more grams of protein in my sandwich and are saving 5 grams of carbs and 10 grams of fat, mainly because my sandwich has NO BREADING, EGGS OR OIL. You could also use a lower calorie bun to save even more carbs, which is something I would recommend so you get even more chicken goodness in every bite.

I’ve already written way too much (hopefully Lyssy doesn’t see this), but to summarize, this sandwich is a MUST MAKE if you own an air fryer (which you should have already purchased by now). Give it a try and leave a comment down below. Who knows, if this post does well then maybe Lyssy will let me guest post again in the future.

Thanks for reading!