Food and Cooking

Easy chicken nuggets Recipe

You can pan-fry or oven-cook these chicken nuggets to make an easy dinner the whole family will love. Serve with homemade chips and your family’s favourite vegetables.

Ingredients
350–400g/12–14oz chicken breast mini fillets or 2 chicken breasts cut into strips
3 tbsp plain flour
1 large free-range egg
80g/2¾oz dried breadcrumbs, ideally panko or coarse dried breadcrumbs, or fresh breadcrumbs (see Recipe Tip below)
4–6 tbsp oil
fine sea salt and ground black pepper

chicken nuggets

Method
If you are oven-cooking the chicken, preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7. If pan-frying, ignore this step.

Put the flour in a wide, shallow bowl. Season with salt and pepper and stir. Break the egg into a second shallow bowl and beat with a fork until smooth and pale. Tip half of the breadcrumbs into a third shallow bowl.

Coat each chicken strip first in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, pressing firmly and turning to coat on both sides. Set aside on baking paper.

If oven-cooking the chicken, brush a baking tray with 1 tablespoon of oil. Place the chicken pieces on the tray and brush generously but lightly with 3 tablespoons more oil. Bake for 15 minutes, turning halfway through.

If pan-frying the chicken, heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add half the chicken strips and fry over a medium heat for 2–3 minutes on each side, or until golden-brown, crisp and cooked throughout. Turn with tongs. Drain on a plate lined with kitchen paper and fry the remaining half with 3 more tablespoons of oil.

Recipe Tips
You can use fresh breadcrumbs to coat the chicken but the bread shouldn’t be too fresh. Two-day-old bread works well, or you can toast slices in a preheated oven at 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 for 10–15 minutes, or until dry but not coloured. Cut off the crusts and blend into fairly coarse crumbs in a blender or food processor.

Source: BBC FOODS