Healthy Chicken Nuggets

For dinner tonight I knew we were having chicken (we had just bought a GIANT bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco), but I was bored of my usual chicken recipes (grilled chicken, crockpot chicken, BBQ chicken), so I had the idea to make some chicken nuggets, yum! Most kids (and many adults) LOVE chicken nuggets. Usually these nuggets are fried in oil giving them their tasty flavor while providing a cartload of calories. So I decided I was going to come up with a way to bake them in the oven without sacrificing flavor. That's when I realized that we were out of a necessary ingredient for the breading process, eggs. We also didn't have any of the ingredients I've used as substitutes in the past (yes you can bread chicken with yogurt or applesauce!). So my solution was to create buttermilk. Did you know you can do that? All I did was add a few teaspoons of lemon juice to about a half a cup of 2% milk. I let that stew for a couple minutes, gave it a sitr, and Voila! buttermilk! Success!


Oven Baked Chicken Nuggets
-Chicken breasts, fresh or thawed, cut into bite sized pieces (I used 4 smaller ones and we had plenty 
  enough for me, Matt and Peyton.)
-Panko Bread Crumbs (these can be found in the ethnic food aisle of the grocery store. I prefer these 
  Japanese bread crumbs over regular ones because they are airy and crunchier!)
-Seasoning to flavor the bread crumbs (You can use a couple teaspoons of Italian Seasoning, or just   
  combine a few things; I used salt, paprika, garlic powder and pepper)
-Buttermilk (or milk with a couple teaspoons of lemon juice mixed in)
-Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Combine your bread crumbs and seasoning in one bowl and put the buttermilk in the other bowl. Spray a 9x13 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. For each piece of chicken, first drench it in the buttermilk and then in the Panko crumb mixture, then place it in the baking dish. It's okay if the nuggets are touching in the dish, just make sure they are all one layer. Sprinkle your nuggets with a small amount of olive oil. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 mins. Then put the nuggets under the broiler on low for about 5 mins, or until they're nice and brown and crunchy. Let them rest for a few mins. before serving so they won't all fall apart. Then drench in ketchup or barbecue sauce to your heart's content!

These are your ingredients.

Coat each piece of chicken in buttermilk, then the crumb mixture. Drizzle with olive oil and place in a glass baking dish.

Bake until they are nice and toasty!

Enjoy with the dipping sauce of your choice! :)