Chicken Nuggets

Chicken Nuggets
Chicken Nuggets

Once you’ve made these chicken nuggets at home, you’ll never get them at a fast food joint again. These really are so easy that you might find yourself making them two or three time a week.

I made this with one chicken breast, which was fine as a snack.  If you want to double or even triple this, or if you want to spend a few hours over a pan of hot oil to feed an entire party (let me know how that goes!), you can adjust the spices and flour to suit your tastes.  You could even double the spices as I have them in the recipe card below if you like an extra kick.

Chicken Nuggets
Dice up the chicken in to small pieces. One trick here is to place your knife parallel with your counter and slice the breast down the center. This will give you nice flat pieces that cook up quickly.

Not pictured is the brine – because, boring.  This is a key element to juicy chicken nuggets. We’re using fish sauce here due to its high concentration of salt, slight sweetness and for an added element of flavor. If you don’t have fish sauce, you can sub in soy sauce, worcestershire sauce or just some kosher salt and sugar.  The important thing here is we’re flavoring the chicken and protecting it from over cooking when we add it to the frying oil.

Chicken Nuggets
Combine the flour, panko and spices in a bowl. For this recipe, we just one wet and one dry bowl. Less mess to clean!

Sorry, I forgot to show the smashed panko.  This is important too.  Panko gives the perfect amount of crunchiness as a coating for the chicken.  When we mix all these ingredients together, after a brining and a good drying, they stick absolutely perfectly to the chicken.  It’s like magic! But its just cooking and #youcandoit! We’re going to double down on the crunch in a minute too.

Chicken Nuggets
The dredging station is prepped.

We’ve removed our chicken from the brine and it’s drying off.  Dry chicken will allow the eggs to stick without the need of a flour dredging. I’m keeping this in mind for the future.  I have a hypothesis that the flour dredge may actually prevent good stickage.  So, chicken goes in to egg, then flour, shake excess and let rest on paper towel for ten minutes.

Chicken Nuggets
This 10 minute rest will allow the spices to flavor the chicken and allow the it to air dry. You’ll find that some of the surface is wet and in need of a little more flour. Just before we fry up these nuggs, we’re going to dunk them back in to the flour real quick. If you’re making these right now, I’m so happy for you! Are you pumped?
Chicken Nuggets
We’ve brined, dried, egged, floured, rested, and floured again. Now we cook. About 3-4 minutes per side should do it.
Chicken Nuggets
As the best chicken nuggets you’ve ever had are removed from the pan, place them on a paper towel lined wire rack to cool off and drain.
Chicken Nuggets
Plate up your nuggets along with some of your favorite dipping sauces. I went with a home made orange blossom honey mustard and some Sriracha.
Chicken Nuggets

Chicken Nuggets

Anthony
Once you’ve made these chicken nuggets at home, you’ll never get them at a fast food joint again. These really are so easy that you might find yourself making them two or three time a week.
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Course Snacks
Cuisine American
Servings 12 Nuggets

Ingredients
  

  • 1 chicken breast nuggetized
  • 1 Tbsp fish sauce
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 egg whites whisked
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs smashed
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp cayenne
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • Canola Oil

Instructions
 

  • Combine fish sauce and water in a medium bowl.
  • Dice the chicken breast in to small bite size pieces.
  • Add chicken to brine for 45 minutes. 
  • Remove chicken and pat dry on paper towels.
  • Add whisked egg whites to bowl for dredging.
  • Combine flour, salt, peper, cayenne, garlic powder, onion powder, baking soda and panko.
  • Dredge chicken in egg then in flour. Set aside for 10 minutes on paper towels.
  • Heat oil in skillet over medium-low heat.
  • Before adding chicken to oil, dredge in flour again and shake to remove excess.
  • Fry chicken on each side 3-4 minutes or until golden brown.
  • Remove to cool on wire rack.
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One Comment

  1. Fish sauce! What a unique addition to chicken nuggets! I can’t wait to try these and if you can post a hot mustard sauce to go along with these (like the kind that Mickey D’s used to carry, R.I.P.), that would be amazing 🙂

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