Healthier Cheater Chicken Nuggets

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These healthier chicken nuggets whip up quick, have a handful of simple ingredients, and scratch that itch when your kids (or you) are wanting to drive through McDonalds. When I am craving A good chicken Nugget I love to make these sourdough batter nuggets, but they take a bit longer, so this simplified version comes together for a quick lunch or a snack meal on play date days.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

When it comes to lunch my kids tend to get bored. Sandwiches are hit and miss, sometimes quesadillas, we do a ton of snack meals, but any form of chicken nugget is always a hit. I love that these are made with just cut up chicken breast– no grinding or food processor here. Fresh milled flour as our breading and avocado oil as our frying agent (or tallow) make these guilt free and delicious.

When I make these I like to use my kitchen shears to cut into small sized chunks, and using this step over a knife or especially grinding makes these scratch chicken nuggets feel quick and easy. We are always looking for more ways to get protein into our girl who would live off of apples if we let her, so knowing she’s getting a healthy source of chicken with these puts my mind at ease.

These healthy little chicken nuggets are so versatile and can be made to work for you, use whatever spices you like, mine are just a recommendation, but have fun with it. I’m not particular about which wheat berries I use for this recipe, sometimes it is just the “kitchen sink” of leftover flour thats in the fridge from the previous days’ bake. You can do rye, hard red/white, spelt, even a soft white or Kumat, these are very forgiving. If you don’t have a gran mill yet, check out this post on what I recommend when you aren’t quite ready to make that big purchase, and of course sub store bought flour where you need to.

Ingredients for Homemade Chicken Nuggets Using Fresh Milled Flour

• Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast– I like to Use this cut to streamline things, a quick trim of the fat followed by cutting chunks off into the bowl of breading and we are halfway there!
• 1 egg (optional) – If I don’t have eggs on hand (it always happens that way when you need them, am I right?) I go ahead and omit, the eggs just help get extra breading to stick, making for an extra crunchy end product.
• 1 1/2 c Fresh milled flour- Use your choice of berries, whatever you have on hand, I like to grind at a setting size 7-10 (think cream of wheat) to get a nice crunch, but this works fine if your flour is already ground to bread setting.
• avocado oil- (or tallow, or oil of choice) These are the two I recomend for frying to get the best results, and as the healthiest option, coconut oil works too!
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp mustard powder

Equipment Needed

Cast iron Skillet for frying- I have an old lodge one I got for $6 at goodwill a hanful of years back. If its 100% cast iron you cant go wrong (yes even if it’s the cheap mainstays ones!). Enamel is great too, but when it chips its time to toss so you don’t risk any leaching of the coating. This Lodge one is reasonable and will last a lifetime if you want it to. Theres lots of bougie high end ones out there, its an expensive black hole, youv’e been warned!

Bowl for mixing chicken and breading— Any bowl will do!

Measuring Spoons / cups — If I’m going to honest with you, and I am, half the time I eyeball it all because the measuring spoons are in the dishwasher.

Spoon and tongs– for mixing and flipping.

Sharp Kitchen shears

Cooling rack— allows excess oil to drip off

paper towels/flour sack towels/brown paper bags (like lunch bags)–any of these will do if you want to take an extra measure with any remaining oil. this step is optional but I do prefer to do this.

How to Make the Chicken Nuggets

• Heat up oil in cast iron skillet on medium high. I like to wait about 5-7 minutes. One trick to know if your oil is ready is to toss a toothpick in. when it starts to bubble as though its being fried you are good to go. If your pan starts smoking youve gone to far. We have all been there, it usually still works out, don’t worry!
• while pan is heating, mix the flour + seasonings together in a bowl big enough to fit your chicken chuncks.
• cut chicken into chuncks (after trimming any fat) and mix with egg, then strain away exess egg (if using)
• pour chicken chunks into breading and mix until all pieces are evenly covers
• place enough chicken nuggets into pan to fill the bottom without overcrowding.
• let the nggets cook on each side four about 4 minutes each, depending on size of pieces this could be more or less. I like to use a meat thermometer like this on the largest piece of each batch and remove when it hits 160-165 (the chicken will continue to cook a bit more as it rests)
• remove fried chicken nuggets from oil and transfer to cooling rack, then to additional towel (if using) to absorb exess oil. quickly add next batch of nuggets to pan and follow the same steps

What to Serve with Chicken Nuggets

I like to eat this with ketchup of course. We usually make a massive snack meal out of these, adding fruits, veggies, cheese, and nuts. Of course a nice cold glass of raw milk makes everything complete, am I right? I know some people like to go the french fry route with nuggets but if we are cooking form scratch an easy meal can turn into an hour in the kitchen real quick, and I’m not about to do that in the middle of the day.

will you make this healthy twist on chicken nuggets? what do you like to serve them alongside– let me know in the comments, happy eating
Toni

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