You know those ‘duh’ moments? The ones where you think, “Why have I not done this all along?”
I had one last week.
I’m a sucker for a spicy chicken wing, and Buffalo wings* are near the top of the heap for me. Sometimes, though, my inner finicky, tactile-defensive, high-maintenance child** rears its head, though, and I don’t want to deal with the messy, greasy bones. Yeah. I hardly know myself those days.
*I feel silly calling them Buffalo wings because Buffalo is my neighbor geographically and people can smell a non-local a mile away if they call ’em Buffalo wings. There. Travel advice from Foodie with Family. When in Buffalo, just order hot wings. And napkins.
**Why yes, my mother is a psych nurse. Why do you ask?
In those cases, I’m always tempted to buy those packages of frozen boneless ‘wingz’. Really? Can we please indicate they’re not actual ‘wings’ from a chicken in another way? My kids call this ‘trendy illiteracy’. I love my kids. Every time I cave and buy a package I’m always disappointed. The wingz (GAH) are either mushy piece meat or the breading is too soft or they taste of preservatives or the sauce is off-tasting.
I told you I was high maintenance. But wait! There’s more!
I have always wanted to like chicken nuggets. I love chicken. I love breaded things. Why wouldn’t I love nuggets? It’s like this. As a child, I desperately clung to the idea that chicken nuggets were what I wanted to eat at McDonald’s. I ordered it every time. (And people, we didn’t go out to eat a whole lot, so that was commitment on my part.) And every last time I ordered the nuggets (with hot mustard, thankyouverymuch) I would bite into a nugget and come away with a mouthful of gristle. That was the point where I gagged. Every cotton-pickin’ time. Sometimes it was the first nugget and my meal was finished then. Sometimes it was the last one and I was lulled into a false sense of security by all the other nuggets then WHAMMO. One thing was certain, though; it was inevitable. Frozen chicken nuggets and more chi-chi restaurant chicken fingers were slightly more reliably not gristly, but meh; Who wants to order chicken fingers at a grown-up restaurant?
So where does my duh moment come in? I figured I could make them myself. Big, fat, hairy lightbulb. I opted against frying them because I reasoned that in doing so, I could eat more pizza at other times. (Nutritional math, people. It’s how I roll.) Besides this, baking them in the oven means a delicious product that is slightly healthier AND creates less overall mess.
And healthier yet is the fact that in lieu of using egg and milk to stick bread crumbs to the chicken, I chose Greek yogurt with crunchy whole wheat panko crumbs. The variety of Greek yogurt I use is a lower fat one without funky fillers and additives; it simply starts with a lower content milkfat than other yogurts. One lovely bonus of using Greek yogurt here is that it keeps the chicken moist without making the breading soggy. Hooray for Greek yogurt!
After parking the chicken in yogurt with spices…
…then dredging them through panko you’ve seasoned with more spices, and baking them on a foil lined tray ’til golden brown and crispy and cooked through, you can stop right there and eat away til you’re chicken nuggeted out, content in the knowledge that you’ve trimmed those chicken breasts of all gristle.
~OR~ you can go just one step further and toss it in a lightning-speed, two-ingredient (because that’s all authentic wing sauce ever needs!) Buffalo wing sauce for Boneless Buffalo WingS. You better believe I intended to capitalize that ‘s’. I feel I’m striking a blow for people everywhere whose eyeballs throb when they read deliberate misspelling on packaging. One recipe, two possible results, both delicious. And gristle free. Hooray!
Can you say tidy fingers and no grease stains on the couch pillows on game day? Can I get an air fist-bump here?
Oven “Fried” Homemade Chicken Nuggets {and Boneless Buffalo Wings}
Ingredients
- 8 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 2 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt
- 2 teaspoons cumin divided
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper divided
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder divided
- 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder divided
- 3 teaspoons kosher salt divided
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 4-6 cups panko bread crumbs preferably whole wheat
- Cooking oil spray canola, vegetable, grapeseed or peanut.
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups Homemade Garlic Buffalo Sauce
Optional for serving:
- Bleu Cheese Dressing for dipping
Instructions
- Combine the yogurt, 1 teaspoon each of the cumin, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder, 2 teaspoons of the kosher salt, and the black pepper in a one-gallon resealable plastic bag. Close it and use your hand to squish the contents around until it's mostly evenly combined. Set aside.
- Trim the chicken breasts of any gristly bits and slice them into even pieces. I usually cut it in half cross-wise, then into pieces that are about 2-inches by 1 1/2-inches by 1/2-inch but you can cut them into any shape you'd like as long as they're mostly equal in size. This makes them cook more evenly. Transfer all of the chicken pieces into the bag with the yogurt, seal the bag, and squish everything around so the chicken is evenly coated in the spiced yogurt. Let this rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly spritz it with cooking oil (either a spray bottle of oil or non-stick cooking spray.)
- Add 4 cups of the the panko bread crumbs and the remaining cumin, cayenne, garlic and onion powders, and salt to a pie plate or other shallow dish and stir them together. Using tongs to keep your hands neat, remove one chicken strip at a time and lay them in the dish of bread crumbs. Flip them over, pressing crumbs onto all yogurt covered surfaces, then transfer the coated piece of chicken to the lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining chicken and crumbs, leaving a little space between each piece to allow air to circulate around it as it bakes. If you find yourself running out of crumbs, add the remaining panko and spice it up with a little more cumin, garlic and onion powder, and salt. When you have coated all of the pieces, bake for about 25 minutes or more, depending on the size you've cut the chicken to, or until the coating is golden brown and crunchy and the internal temperature of the thickest piece is 170°F.
- These can be served as is with a variety of dips ~OR~
To Make Boneless Buffalo Wings:
- Stir together the proportions of hot sauce and butter to create the degree of heat in the sauce you prefer. You can either serve this as a dip (as my husband prefers) or toss the crispy wings in the sauce. If you toss them in the sauce, serve them immediately as they do soften after a short while. These are wonderful with the traditional bleu cheese dip!
- Store leftover nuggets or wings, if you have any, tightly wrapped in the refrigerator and eat within 3 days.
Nutrition
Is anyone else weirded out by certain foods?
This post was originally published on September 25th, 2013.
Maureen says
Hi Rebecca,
I was wondering if the hot sauce and butter have to be brought to a boil.
Rebecca says
Hi Maureen- They do not need to boiled for this! As long as the butter is completely melted, you can just whisk it together!
CarrollWC says
I know I’m late commenting, but to the person who asked about Frank’s back in February – Beside’s the traditional hot sauce, Frank’s also makes 2 versions of “Buffalo” sauce – a regular and a hot. It mimics the Frank’s/butter combination so you can always have it on hand – my sons use it as a condiment. I get in trouble if there’s no Buffalo sauce in the house 🙂
Secondly, do you know approximately how many pounds of chicken you buy for this particular recipe? Chicken tenders are on sale this week and I thought it would be a great opportunity to use them.
Thanks!
PS I sent your recipe for Sangria to my bartender son, because it is right up my alley.
Rebecca says
Hi CarrollWC! Thanks for the tip on the Frank’s Buffalo sauce. I’m a little old school on it, so I’ll probably keep combining my butter and hot sauce, but that is a good thing to know! I’d go with between 2 to 3 pounds of the chicken breast for the recipe as written.
CarrollWC says
Hi Rebecca, I had already gotten the tenders and I used 3 pounds. Next time I might try 2 ½, so there’s a little more room in the pan. We loved the seasonings and the tenderness from the yogurt! Also less fattening than my mayo/Frank’s combo before bread crumbs. We also dipped in Frank’s so we could still have leftovers.
The bottoms of our tenders were a little soggy – next time we’re going to try baking on a rack.
Thanks again for all your great recipes!
Ellen says
Is the butter necessary with the Frank’s hot sauce? Can I just use double the amount of hot sauce and leave out the butter or will that change the flavor? Thanks!
Rebecca says
The butter/Frank’s is the traditional Buffalo sauce. If you omit the butter it will change the flavour, most definitely. You can omit it, but it will no longer be a Buffalo sauce.
Amanda says
Is there a version to make this without using greek yogurt? I’d like to not further destroy the environment with a by-product no one knows how to get rid of.
Rebecca says
That sounds more like a lecture than a question, Amanda! 😀 Without getting too far into the fact that whey (the by-product) is used as fertilizer and in protein powder (whey powder), I will say that this recipe was developed specifically to use Greek yogurt. I’m certain there are other oven baked chicken tender recipes out there, and equally certain many of them don’t use Greek yogurt, so maybe one of those might suit you better! I can say this, though… these chicken nuggets are tremendously tasty and quite healthy compared to oil fried chicken, so I still recommend them!
Dawn Stafford says
I am a couple years late on this recipe I noticed the date you posted it.But I made this the other night and it was awesome! I made it as you wrote it except I left it in the yogurt over night. The flavor was great but we could not eat them all so we had them warmed up the next day and they were just as good! This is a recipe I will keep in my rotation for a long time to come. Thank you !
Rebecca says
It may be an older recipe, but I still respond to all lovely comments (and questions!) I’m so glad you enjoyed it and I’m glad to know it works well if you let the chicken mellow in the yogurt overnight.
Heather says
Can you share which Greek yogurt you like to use?
Rebecca says
You bet! For this recipe, I’d go with Wegman’s brand plain Greek yogurt or Chobani. In short, just use any plain Greek yogurt you can get your hands on! 😀
Susan says
These nuggets sound like they’d be an easy go-to lunch menu item. So I’m looking forward to trying them. Simple lunches are always a winner.
My childhood weird out food was the tendons on lamb shanks. My mother used to make lamb with dumplings, for which she used the shanks, and those tendons got me every time. Even though I may have that recipe somewhere, I have never, as an adult, made that, even though I now know what it was that I didn’t like.
Rebecca says
They’re a nice, healthy lunch option, too!
Jessica says
can I use regular bread crumbs instead of panko? I have those at home so it’d be one less thing to worry about! would the measurements/directions be the same??
Rebecca says
I haven’t tested them with regular bread crumbs because I like them so much made with the panko ones. I’m assuming you could, but I can’t guide you on quantities and any direction changes as the recipe was designed with panko crumbs in mind. 😀
Ryli says
Made these this evening (tossed in buffalo sauce) and they were incredible. Thank you for the recipe!