Homemade Chicken Nuggets with a Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

If anyone has ever had a mentor, they know they are completely invaluable and probably the best thing since sliced bread (Capital G, L & K if you’re reading this – this means you!!). I’ve never really had a cooking mentor (if you don’t count my grandma), but I’ve recently met one. But he’s more like an Iron Chef – always pushing innovative ideas for food and makes you want to cook fancy food all the time. So this post is for you Beets – or is a Iron Chef CB a better blog name? Either way, let’s get to these chicken nuggets!

For the homemade chicken nuggets (in above picture: the dark ones are the fried version and light are the baked), take eight chicken thighs, skin and de-bone and place into a large bowl and cover with 1 cup of buttermilk. If you don’t have buttermilk, just place a tablespoon of vinegar in milk. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight.

The next day, drain the buttermilk and place the chicken thigh meat in a food processor and add the following:

• 1/4 cup fresh finely chopped chives
• 1 cloves of garlic finely chopped
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp tabasco sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• juice of one lemon
• 1 egg

Turn the food processor on and let blend for one minute until a paste forms. Be sure not to over blend otherwise you’ll struggle on making nicely formed nuggets.

Get your breading station ready with the following (each in their own individual dish):

• 1 cup flour (I used purple wheat flour)
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• 1 cup panko crumbs

Now start breading, by forming the chicken paste into small sized nuggets; dip into the flour, followed by the eggs and then into the panko. To cook, you have a few options:

1. Deep fry for about 5 minutes
2. Bake at 400°F for 20 mins on each side
3. Fry in two tablespoons of vegetable oil (do NOT substitute with olive oil as it has a low burn temperature). Flip every two minutes for about 10 minutes.

These nuggets also freeze great. Freeze before cooking. As for the homemade honey mustard dipping sauce it’s pretty easy. Combine 1/4 cup honey with 1/4 cup honey mustard sauce and 3 tsp dry mustard and whisk until smooth.

This recipe was originally adapted from Chef Chuck Hughes recipe.

Carlene

(P.S. Sorry for the lack of posts lately – life has been crazy between life, moving, spring cleaning & training for my half marathon – more posts to come – I promise! 🙂 )