Home Made Chicken Nuggets

The fast food places all have their versions, but these Home Made Chicken Nuggets are better and cheaper than all of them.  Plus, you know what ingredients are going into them – and you can even make them gluten-free if you want.  So how inexpensively can you make these at home?  I mean, you can buy 20 McDonald’s chicken nuggets for $5… can you really make them cheaper than that?

Absolutely.

Using 2 chicken breasts, I tried to cut it into pieces approximately the same size as used in a fast food chicken nugget.  I actually made them a bit meatier, and ended up with 55 pieces of chicken – plenty to feed a family. I found it easiest to cut the chicken breast lengthwise into 4 or 5 strips, and then slice in the opposite direction.

The process for preparing the chicken is very similar to how I bread chicken for Chicken Paremesan.  But for chicken nuggets, it works best to place the flour, eggs and breadcrumbs in large mixing bowls. After adding a bit of salt and pepper – coat in this order: flour, egg, breadcrumbs.

TIP – to make the chicken extra tender, I use a Jaccard Meat Tenderizer before I cut the chicken.   It seriously makes a big difference; I use this for many types of meat as well.

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Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts, trimmed
• 3/4 cup all-purpose white four (gluten-free option: use a gluten-free flour substitute, we used Better Batter)
• 3 eggs, beaten with 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (gluten-free option: use gluten-free breadcrumbs, we used Schar Gluten Free Bread Crumbs)
• 1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Peanut oil, enough to cover the bottom of your pan about 1/4″ deep

Directions:

1. Score the chicken breasts several times with a Jaccard meat tenderizer (optional)
2. Cut each chicken breast into small pieces.
3. Using a handful of chicken pieces at a time, drench the chicken in flour, shaking off the excess.
4. Dip the chicken in the beaten egg and cover completely.
5. In a dish with the breadcrumbs mixed with 1 tsp kosher salt, coat all sides of the chicken.
6. Heat peanut oil in a pan; hot but not smoking.
7. Place chicken in the pan and cook for 5 minutes, flipping once halfway through.
8. Once cooked all the way through, remove from oil and season with salt.
9. Blot excess oil with paper towels.

Serves 6

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Have you grabbed my freezer meal plans, yet? I might be biased but I think they are pretty amazing! They have saved our dinner hour for years now. Check them out!