This buffalo chicken salad is super addicting, easy to make, and filled with goodies! Crispy pan fried chicken tenders are tossed in 2 ingredient buffalo sauce and mixed with greens, carrots, celery, avocado and topped with Whole30 compliant cilantro ranch dressing. Easy to prep ahead of time and great for weeknight dinners.
My crispy buffalo chicken wings are one of the most well-loved blog recipes and obviously that’s nothing to argue with. The people want crispy buffalo chicken!
I mean, I also want crispy buffalo chicken. I used to say way back when that the recipes I create for the blog are secretly (or maybe not so much!) MY favorite meals and honestly it really hasn’t changed much.
I crave, I create, I post. And that’s exactly how this crispy buffalo chicken salad was born – I just needed that buffalo chicken fix and a huge salad sounded like heaven!
This salad is actually super simple to make. Yes, I know I might say that a lot, but hey – my recipes usually ARE pretty dang simple only because it’s all around better that way, don’t you think?!
Not only is it simple, but you can prepare the salad itself and the dressing ahead of time. The chicken is ready in about 20 minutes flat, so, there you go – a 20 minute dinner!
We start with the “salad” part of the salad, if that makes sense. It’s a mix of greens (choose what you like) chopped celery, shredded red cabbage and carrots, and avocado.
For the chicken, I used tenderloins. I dredged them in an almond flour/tapioca mix with some flavor added in, and pan fried in coconut oil. You can also use avocado oil or ghee for frying with good results.
After the chicken is cooked, each tenderloin is dipped in the buffalo sauce which is just a mix of Whole30 compliant hot sauce and melted ghee – and it’s perfect!
After dipping the chicken, you can place it right on the salad to serve, or cut it into bite size pieces as I did. Add in the avocado and drizzle all over with the cilantro ranch dressing, and you have an easy and seriously delicious dinner ready for action.
Oh, and if you happen to have a little bit of leftover buffalo sauce, you need to drizzle that on there too!
Add a little extra cilantro and you’re good to go. And make sure you save a little of the leftovers for lunch the next day. I guarantee you’ll want this crispy buffalo chicken salad for more than just one meal!
Are you ready?! Because now I’m over here craving this big salad all over again! So yeah, it’s time to grab our ingredients and a big skillet – let’s go!
Crispy Buffalo Chicken Salad {Paleo, Whole30, Keto}
Crispy Buffalo Chicken Salad with Cilantro Ranch {Paleo, Whole30, Keto}
Ingredients
Salad:
- 3 cups chopped romaine or salad greens
- 3 Celery stalks chopped
- 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
- 1 cup Shredded carrots
- 1 large Avocado sliced
- Thinly sliced red onion optional
Chicken:
- 1 lb chicken tenderloins
- 1 large egg whisked
- 3/4 cup blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour or arrowroot
- 1 and 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 cup coconut oil or avocado oil for frying
- 1/3 cup Franks original hot sauce
- 1/4 cup ghee melted
- Additional cilantro for garnish
Dressing:
- 1/2 cup homemade mayo or purchased paleo mayo
- 3 Tbsp coconut milk
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 2 Tbsp cilantro minced
- 1 tsp dried chives
- 1/4 tsp dried dill
- 1 tsp fresh lime juice
- 1/8-1/4 tsp salt or to taste
Instructions
- Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a bowl until nice and smooth, then cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- In a large serving bowl, arrange the salad ingredients, except for the avocado, which should be sliced right before serving to avoid browning. Cover and refrigerate while you prepare the chicken.
- Whisk the egg in a small shallow bowl and in another shallow bowl, add the almond flour, tapioca, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.
- Heat a large skillet over medium/med-hi heat (non-stick is preferreand add the oil for frying.
- Once sizzling hot, (breading with soften and fall off if oil isn’t hot enougdip a piece of chicken in the egg, shaking off excess, coat with dry mixture, and place in the skillet. Repeat with all chicken pieces.
- Cook on one side until golden brown, about 3 mins, adjusting the heat if necessary. Turn carefully using tongs so as not to lose the “breading”.
- Cook on the second side until golden brown on the outside and cooked through inside - about 6 mins total depending on thickness.
- Remove chicken to a paper towel lined plate and allow to cool a bit.
- In a bowl, whisk together the hot sauce and melted ghee. Dip each piece of chicken in the sauce to coat and place on a cutting board. If you don’t want to cut the chicken before serving the salad, you can place the chicken right over the salad.
- Cut chicken into pieces if desired, then arrange on the salad, drizzling any leftover sauce over the top. Arrange avocado around the chicken, and serve right away with the ranch dressing. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Shop Products and Ingredients:
Want More Whole30 Salad Recipes? Try One of These!
Crispy Chicken Salad with “Honey” Mustard Dressing
Kale Salad with Chicken and Hot Bacon Dressing
Shrimp Cobb Salad with Lemon Garlic Vinaigrette
BLT Chicken Salad with Peppercorn Ranch
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I love buffalo chicken and this recipe sounds amazing! Love how quickly it comes together yet it packs quite the flavor punch. Yum!
I made this tonight, and as usual it’s another delicious recipe. It was easy and came together quickly. Thanks for all of these awesome recipes!
This is another amazing recipe. My entire family loved it!!
This recipe is by far my favorite! I love absolutely everything about this. Also a great recipe for just chicken tenders – will be making the tenders again for my toddler!
My husband and I have decided to take the 30 day keto challenge. So, the first recipe I tried was this one tonight for dinner. It was delicious! He really enjoyed it and so did I, and he’s a meat and potatoes guy. I have never purchased or used tapioca flour before, but the chicken tasted amazing and I can’t imagine doing chicken tenders any other way now. The salad and dressing were so good too. Thank you for the recipe.
Love every single one of your recipes!! I’m wondering if there’s a way to dip and bread and then BAKE the chicken?
This mixture for breading the chicken is SO GOOD! The best whole30 one I’ve tried, by far. I’ve been reheating the chicken by quickly frying both sides again in coconut oil, and it is lunch salad perfection 🙌🏼 Thank you!!
made this recipe! it’s awesome. i will say, at least for me, when it comes to frying chicken it takes a bit longer than 6 minutes and also needs to cook at lower heat because as the oil gets dirtier the chicken pops just like when you cook bacon (also i use avocado oil which i think gets hotter faster.) but tastes amazing and is perf for whole30!
Made this the other day and it was amazing! My son (he is not a whole30’er) said he could eat it everyday and is willing to learn how to make it himself! This is a winner. I will agree with another poster though, the chicken took longer than the recipe stated, but that’s okay, worth every extra minute. Thanks for posting!! This will be made often in my house – in large quantities too – to carry over for lunches! Thanks for posting 🙂
Yes I just make it, is actually really good, I just want it to know if you have a suggestion on switching the buffalo sauce for another brand I found this one to be a little salty
PERFECTION!!!
So yummy! Very tasty and easy to make. Love the crunch the carrots and cabbage give to the salad. I cannot have dairy so I subbed coconut oil for the ghee it was still delish!!!
This recipe was amazing and really easy to make. We will be adding this recipe to our besties. Thank you
Holy cow, this recipe is amazing! So simple, yet so damn delicious. I completely veganized it so I used vegan chicken and vegan mayo, and I CAN NOT GET ENOUGH OF THE DRESSING!! It is WAAAAAYYY better than any vegan ranch dressing in the store. Seriously, nothing comes close. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
After completing a Whole30 and then switching to a Paleo diet, I find myself using one of your recipes at least twice a week if not more. Your site is my go-to. This one was awesome! Loved the leftovers for lunch as well. So good!
This is both beautiful and delicious!
Buffalo chicken salad is my favorite!
Made this for dinner tonight. It was amazing!!
Hello! I am making this tonight but my roommate is allergic to almond flour– what could I use instead?
Can you bake the chicken?
This salad is AMAZING!! Got rave reviews from the family and will definitely be making this often!!!
Yes, I made this today. I really love all the flavors together. Just Got stuck on almond flour and tapioca flour or arrowroot, What? I figured it out and I learned something new. Thank you running momma! 😃
Can’t keep this in the house! Love it!
Made this tonight and holy yummm! Will definitely be making it again! Love, love , love your recipes! They save me time and time again:)
My partner asked if we could have this every night! Yum, was hoping to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow but we devoured it all!
Serve in buffalo chicken tacos, in a buffalo chicken salad, or even a buffalo chicken breakfast frittata!
This recipe was amazing! However, your page is full of so many ads.. very annoying!!!
I made the chicken last night, and it was great! I used a smaller amount of almond flour and subbed coconut flour for tapioca, but it was delicious!
Loved it!! Easy to make and so very delicious! Also, the sauce that accompanies the salad is fabulous…so double this if you are a sauce person like me! 😉
Love this recipe. I’ve made it before, but for some reason it turned out way better this time. I’m not following a whole30 right now, so instead of ghee, I used butter to mix with the hot sauce. Delicious. But I have made it with ghee before and it was still delicious. I think I used more lime juice in my dressing than the recipe calls for (not sure, because i didn’t measure it out), but the unskippable ingredient in the dressing is definitely the cilantro. It compliments the other flavors extremely well. I love this salad recipe and while it’s healthy, it makes me feel like I’m indulging. Will continue to come back to this one!
Wow!!!! Sooo good! Even my Husband can’t stop talking about it!!! Seriously better than any restaurant salad!!!!!
Family favorite for sure!! Also use the “breading mixture” on beef chunks or fish- it is amazing!!!!