What about some homemade chicken nuggets to start the week?

We rarely buy junk food at home or go to fast food. We sometimes do take out for lunch when I don’t have time to cook (which is usually Poke, so still very much healthy) or sometimes we order Thai or Indian for a change.

My son goes to school (well daycare) and as you (may) know, kids bring their own lunch. One of the kids had chicken nuggets so of course my son asked for them. I thought it was actually a good idea. I used to like chicken nuggets a lot and had not had one in a very long time.

It was the first time I was attempting a homemade chicken nuggets recipe. Everyone loved them and to be honest I wonder why I ever bought store bought chicken nuggets before as they are so easy to make and so much tastier.

There are plenty of ways to prepare nuggets, two of the main ways being keeping the chicken as a piece or blending the chicken to get a texture that is more similar to McDonalds. I really wanted to go for fast food this time, so I blended the chicken,

Ingredients are very plain so surprisingly healthy. The only downfall of course is that we cook it in oil, but they were not greasy. We never eat fry food anyway, so once in a while is really not a problem. You can also bake them in the oven obviously to skip the frying.

What to eat with your homemade chicken nuggets?

You can stay within the fast-food theme and prepare French fries. To avoid eating too much fried food, cut your potatoes into wedges (or sweet potatoes for a change), spread them into a baking sheet, add olive oil, salt and pepper (you can also add paprika, Herbes de Provence, or any other spices) and bake for 20mn at 200C (392F). You’ll get easy homemade fries that are not greasy.

This time, we had our nuggets with the vegetables from our garden: a spinach salad with tomatoes and cucumbers.

Which dipping sauce with my homemade chicken nuggets?

I love eating my nuggets with barbecue sauce. I don’t know if you too have this weird thing going on with some food but nuggets= BBQ sauce.

The same way burger = fries and coke or surimi = mayonnaise (ok I am not giving you the best example, nothing gourmet or healthy here 😊 )

But of course, anything works! Just use your favorite sauce.

If you have guests over, make a dipping station with different sauce: mayo, ketchup, barbecue for the classic, and why not curry, siracha etc

Which oil to use to fry the homemade chicken nuggets?

I usually go for sunflower or colza, for their neutral taste. They are perfect to fry food.

We usually avoid olive oil as it as a lower smoke point and will begin to smoke quickly.

What type of breading should we use?

I have been using Panko now for a few yearsinstead of regular bread for all my recipe calling for breading. In case you don’t know Panko yet, it is Japanese (Pan means bread in Japanese, and Ko means crumbs). It is lighter than others breadcrumbs and crunchier.

For my homemade chicken nuggets, I also add cornflakes to the mix. I crushed them first into crumbs before mixing them with the panko.

I also add a spoon of cumin to give it some nice flavor (also cumin is one of my favorite spices and I tend to put it everywhere).

If you do not have panko, do not hesitate to use regular breadcrumbs. You can also use cornflakes only.

Here is the recipe!

Print Recipe