Chicken Nuggets
1. Cut chicken breast into bite-sized chunks; mix chunks up in a bowl with one egg, slightly beaten.
2. Combine in a large bowl:
½ cup bread crumbs
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
3 Tbs Parmesan cheese
(Play with extras: I like to add garlic powder and red pepper for zing, or Italian seasoning…or all of them!)
3. Put chicken pieces in bag and shake to coat all sides.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Chicken is done when there is no pink or pink juice in the middle. Cut one to test if you’re not sure.
Time Saver: You can skip the egg, and they turn out just fine. If you want to be as close as possible to restaurant crispiness, though, keep the egg.
Serve with Homemade French Fries for a finger-lickin’ meal!
I just made this chicken nugget recipe last night, only I simplified (read lazified) it even more! Katie, I know how much you HATE dishes, so you’ll like this! I made it all in a ziplock bag! Cut up the chicken w/ my kitchen scissors and dropped the pieces into a big ziplock. Then tossed in a little flour (1/4c maybe?), zipped the bag and squished to coat the pieces. Tossed in an egg, zip and squish again. Then added the bread crumbs and seasonings, zip and squish. And then spread them all out onto my baking stone. They probably didn’t get covered as nicely as if I would have done it the original way, but they seemed to turn out pretty well and all I need to wash is my kitchen scissors!!
To make it a little more fun (my kids are getting sick of chicken). I filled about 8 little cups with all different dipping sauces. Everyone picked 2 cups. And every so often I’d say “switch” and we’d all pass our cups to the Left, Right, or Across. The game distracted them from the chicken ;o) So there was very little grumbling.
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Can you make these and freeze them then just bake when you are ready to eat?
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Katie Reply:
January 29th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Alicia,
Katie
Most definitely, especially if your chicken wasn’t already frozen!
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are the amounts per chicken breast?
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Eden,
Katie
Great question! Sorry about the sloppily written recipe, I realize. This amount of bread crumbs would probably cover a whole package of chicken breasts, 3-4 total. It’s all about getting the coverage, and you can always add more bread crumbs if you need more!
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Instead of the egg, I use a spicy brown mustard mixed with enough milk to make an eggy consistency. When they’re cooked, I dip into a homemade mustard-honey sauce and a ketchup-honey-mustard sauce (mix your mustard-honey with ketchup to taste). Yummy…
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I can’t wait to try this — thank you Katie and Patti for sharing ideas on how to make this recipe without the eggs…our baby has a severe allergy so I’m always on the lookout for new eggless recipes!
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Michelle Reply:
February 9th, 2011 at 10:17 am
Meg, I would try using buttermilk in place of the egg.
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So…I know this is gonna sound dumb, but you freeze them before or after cooking them?
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Katie Reply:
June 11th, 2010 at 4:26 am
Crissi,
You could do either! I prefer after because then it’s a very fast meal that I don’t need to thaw out. Raw chicken nuggets would have to thaw before going into the oven. Enjoy! : ) Katie
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I also do this with fish sticks. We usually use salmon here but any kind will work.
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I just thought I would throw in my 2 cents here. I have been playing with my (new to me) sour dough starter and the other nights I cut chicken thigh meat of the bone, then into chuncks, dipped it into some starter (mixed with spices and parm cheese in a separate bowl) and pan-fried them. It was really good!
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Nice! If I was feeling particularly like I needed to reduce waste I could use the same principles to do it in a food storage container – that reduces it to 1 dish instead of 2 and a ziploc. May have to try it this way (and let the kids shake, that’s half the fun!)
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