I love everything bagels.  But since I have started being a Trim Healthy Mama, bagels are a thing of the past.  However, these chicken tenders give me those same delicious flavors without the belly bulging carb count!  I saw Rachael Ray make these years ago and loved them way back when.  I was thinking that with all the incredibly high fat items that are usually found at Super Bowl parties, this would be an awesome lower fat, no carb option for those of us not wanting to indulge so much!

The first thing you’re going to want to do is to make the dipping sauce.  It’s really a lot better when it has time for the flavors to combine.  But I forgot to think ahead and ate mine immediately.  Still good, but better a couple hours later!

Mix 6 scallions, diced, with 8 oz. cream cheese and 12 oz. sour cream.  (To keep this a light S in Trim Healthy Mama talk, I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese and substituted plain greek yogurt for the sour cream.  Amazing and a lot less fat).   This dip is not salted, because the chicken tenders should be generously salted for that everything bagel taste.

Now for your fun skewered chicken tenders!  Soak bamboo skewers in water for about 15 minutes.  This keeps them from charring in the oven.  That wouldn’t be fun!

Next, mix up the spice blend.  I threw it into a bowl and mixed it all up and then dumped it onto a plate for dipping the chicken tenders.  It worked really well for me.

Mix:

3T. dehydrated onion

3T. dehydrated garlic

3T. sesame seeds

3T. poppy seeds

generous amount of pepper

Now, the original recipe calls for a bunch of salt, which sadly fell to the bottom of the mix so it didn’t evenly coat my chicken with it’s delicious saltiness.  I recommend salting the chicken tenders before you dip them in the spice mixture.

Put about 1 1/2 pounds of chicken tenders onto skewers, salt and dip in spice blend.  I used one hand to hold the skewer and the other to press the chicken firmly into the spices.  That way they really stick well.  You can’t see this in the picture because I needed one clean hand to hold the camera!Also, every couple chicken tenders, I would have to mix the spices up with a spook to try to keep everything evenly distributed.  Worth the effort to not have some with just poppy seeds and pepper!

I used 2 packages of chicken and it was about 14 kabobs.  There was plenty of the spices for me to do more, so you could probably easily do 2 pounds with this amount.

Put them onto a Silpat lined pan.  You could also line it with parchment paper (NOT wax paper!) or spray it with a light coat of olive oil. (For Trim Healthy Mamas – I wanted to keep these really low in fat so if I wanted to skip the cream cheese in the dipping sauce and throw some sweet potato fries along side, I could easily make it an E meal)

Pop them in the oven at 375 degrees for 10 min.  Flip them over and cook another 10-15 minutes.

I served these in little footed pedestal bowls with the dip in the bottom and the skewered chicken sitting in the dip.  They were so cute and would be a perfect little main dish item to grab for your Superbowl Party.  For a big group, I would serve one skewer in a little cup or shot glass with dip in the bottom.  Delicious, quick and easy.  Tastes great hot or cold!