Low carb chicken nuggets

I want chicken nuggets he said……well that’s easy I said.  But I can’t have them because the coating has too many carbs and it’ll make me feel ill.  I can do low carb chicken nuggets, I said.  Go on then, he said……..so here we are.  I really like them.

I’m in the midst of trying to give this website a complete overhaul – I’m going to change the name and give it a fresh look and possibly a new direction.

My daughter is now in her late teens and has flown the nest so fussy kids are no longer on my radar!  I have a new man who is the least fussy eater I know however he does have some dietary issues with simple carbohydrates, so I have been experimenting with various food staples trying to come up with tasty alternatives.

I do not subscribe to the school of thought which says if it is good for you it must be yummy – I refuse to eat cardboard infused with vitamins and pretend that’s not a crime against my taste buds.  I’m also, I think, a little long in the tooth to start to want meals where there isn’t some substitute dish for pasta or rice or potatoes on my plate.  So I’ve come up with what I think are a number of new recipes which I shall try to photograph and share over the next few weeks.

We like really spicy food so there is quite a bit of kick to these – you can adjust with other flavourings very easily though.  I did them the other day using fajita seasoning instead of the Old Bay and chilli powder – I felt they lacked something for not having the Old Bay though.  It’s generally used as a seasoning for seafood but I think it really adds something to these.

I have adopted the dry hand wet hand trick I’ve seen used on Food Network – can’t remember now who to thank for that but it really stops the mess.  Basically you choose one hand to handle the chicken when its wet to drop it into the crumb mixture and then the other hand to toss the crumbs over the chicken and then to place it on the tray – that way you don’t end up with big globs of crumb stuck to your fingers and have to keep washing your hands!  I have also adopted American cup measures for this as it really doesn’t need to be precise.

This makes a lot of chicken nuggets – they freeze really well though once cooked.  We batch cook a lot.  It would be easy to halve it though.  My local supermarket had one of those offers on where it worked out cheaper to buy eight chicken breasts than four.

Ingredients:

8 skinless chicken breast fillets

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup ground almonds or almond flour

1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons onion powder

1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1 tablespoon ground black pepper

2 teaspoons hit chilli powder

 

Method:

  • Slice the chicken breasts into nugget sized strips and then place into a plastic food bag.
  • Pour over the buttermilk, fasten the bag and squish the chicken around in the buttermilk to make sure it is all covered.
  • Place in the fridge to marinate over night.
  • Heat the oven to 180C fan.
  • Pour the chicken out of the bag into a dish and drain off the excess buttermilk.
  • Place the dry ingredients into a large shallow dish and mix together until blended with a fork.
  • Spray cooking oil onto three large baking sheets.
  • With your left hand pick up a piece of chicken and shake it gently then place it into the dry ingredients.
  • With your right hand, toss dry ingredients over the piece of chicken until it is covered, then pick it up and shake off any excess.
  • Place the coated chicken onto the baking sheet and repeat until all the chicken is coated.
  • Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
  • Allow to stand for a few minutes before serving.

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