BBQ Chicken Tenders and Sweet Potato Waffles

I have never eaten chicken and waffles together before and I was amazed at how well these two went together.  I used a BBQ blend of spices to rub the chicken with and our favorite BBQ sauce.  The waffles were so good my sons at the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. 

Recipe adapted from Food Network

Ingredients:

Chicken-

7-8 chicken tenders

1-2 tablespoons BBQ blend seasoning

2-4 tablespoons BBQ sauce

Olive oil spray

Waffles-

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 scoop vanilla protein powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups buttermilk at room temperature

¾ cup mashed sweet potato

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature

Directions:

1. Sprinkle BBQ seasoning over chicken and rub it in gently ideally the night before or a few hours in advance. Shortly before cooking drizzle BBQ sauce over the chicken tenders and paint to coat the tenders.
2. Preheat a Belgian waffle iron and grill.
3. In a large bowl whisk the buttermilk, sweet potato, applesauce, sugar, and eggs.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients using a spatula to scrape the edges of the bowl.
4. Spray the waffle iron with nonstick spray. Add a heaping cup of batter to the waffle iron and cook until done.  I let my waffles cook for 1 minute after the green light appeared to firm up the waffles.
5. Grill the chicken tenders on high heat for 3 minutes per side.  I added a coating of BBQ sauce when I flipped the tenders over.
6. Serve chicken tenders over the waffles with maple syrup, yogurt, BBQ sauce, etc…
7. We had steamed green beans with this to complete the meal.