I first started preparing dinners in the kitchen at the age of 13, the summer my mom went back to work. Revelling in this new-found freedom to make meals I fancied, I discovered the joys of recipe testing as opposed to drooling over cookbook pictures, (which had until then been a favorite pastime of mine). Of course, I couldn’t go over board and make food my parents would qualify as junk, so I had to make a few compromises along the way, some successful, others not at all. These oven-baked chicken nuggets however got 5 stars. I’ve tried quite a few nugget recipes since having kids, but none of them are quite as simple, tender or tasty as these. In fact, I think I might just get my eldest to try his hand at making them….
Makes 18 chicken nuggets
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp olive oil or ghee or a mix of both
- 3 chicken breasts, cut into 3 pieces length-wise and 2 width-wise
- 1 cup whole milk yogurt
- 1/4 cup Dijon mustard (not the super hot kind, I use the Maille brand)
- 2 cups gluten free crackers (they should look like white soda crackers), blended into breadcrumbs
- 2 tsp organic chicken stock powder (check the label to make sure there aren’t any GMOs, MSG, etc and if you can’t find good quality powder, 1 tsp nutritional yeast + 1 tsp or 2 of celery salt and 1/2 tsp garlic powder)
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 350F
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and grease with all the olive oil or ghee
- In a bowl, mix the yogurt and mustard until smooth and perfectly combined. Set aside.
- In a larger bowl, place the breadcrumbs and mix in the chicken stock powder, cumin and pepper
- Dip each chicken piece in the yogurt mixture, shaking off any excess yogurt and then dip into the breadcrumbs on both sides. Place on baking sheet and repeat with all the other pieces.
- Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Turn each nugget and bake for another 10 minutes.
