It’s MAN-ic Monday again, are you ready for another busy week? Yeah, me neither! But I’ve got a super easy, really quick dish today that I’m excited to share with you guys. Here comes another one of my true stories before I show you the recipe, ready?
First up, a quick pic to get you drooling:
Way back, in the days before we all had pc’s, vcr’s and even cassette tapes, I came up with a recipe for making crispy baked chicken tenders. Uh huh, and nowadays I see the recipe I invented posted ALL over the internet! How does that happen? I don’t remember giving it out to more than a dozen people over the next two decades, so which one of you, my oldest friends, made my recipe public? Huh? Huh?
Here’s how I came up with the recipe for my crispy baked chicken tenders:
My Mom was on a healthy eating kick. Ok, my Mom was always on a healthy eating kick, but with this latest kick she was refusing to make some of our old favorites and substituting things like wild rice and no fat mayonnaise in dishes. There were meatless meals (that tasted like cardboard) and hamburger made with some sort of vegetable stuff with just a wee bit of ground turkey in them in order to keep my Dad from crying at the dinner table.
I was about 15 years old and I WANTED… FRIED… CHICKEN… DADGUMMIT! She looked down her patrician nose at me and said “Toni, unless you can come up with some way to make it in the oven and not use any oil, you won’t be eating fried chicken tonight!”.
I did it! I took out a package of chicken breasts, removed the skin and bones (skin was NOT allowed during healthy eating kicks), then mixed up some mayonnaise (low fat of course) with some spicy brown mustard, then thinned it out and soaked the chicken pieces in it. While they were soaking, Mom strolled over and looked down her patrician nose yet again, saying “Toni, those pieces of chicken are far too big, they need to be cut into at least 3 pieces each. Calories count, remember?”
So I pulled them back out of the soaking mixture and sliced them into shapes that resembled chicken tenders. Next up was the breading. Since it wasn’t going to be fried, I was worried that my usual flour/bread crumb mixture would be soggy- ewwwww!
I ended up rooting through the fridge till I saw the grated parmesan cheese jar. AHA! That stuff always made crispy little bits of yum on top of baked lasagne, so why not on chicken?
I mixed them up with the bread crumbs, then added some spices and plenty of pepper. The newly teensy sized chicken “tenders” got rolled around in them and then they went onto a lightly greased baking sheet. When I say lightly greased, well, I do mean lightly greased! Mom was watching after all.
I knew those bitty tenders would cook quickly, so I cranked the oven up to 400 and popped them in. 15 minutes later they were golden brown and crunchy. My Mom loved them! She declared the recipe a total success and promptly added it to her recipe file.
I’ve played around with my little recipe a lot over the years, and some days I substitute ranch dressing for the mustard, other days I use tabasco sauce to really spice it up…and some days I even add a little white wine to make myself feel all French-i-fied n stuff.
So here’s my basic recipe. I know you’ve seen it elsewhere on the net, but now you’re getting it straight from the source. Just think, if my Mom had just let me make fried chicken that day, these little babies never would have existed!
First up, assemble the ingredients:
Then cut the chicken breasts into small chicken tender shaped pieces. There should be about 2-3 bites in each one so that even little hands can hold and eat them.
Up there you can see the first cut. I slice the breasts crosswise to get them thin, then cut them across into about 3 pieces per slice.
Now it’s time to whip up the dipping mixture. I used to soak these puppies for 20 minutes prior to breading them, but unless you really like standing around for 20 minutes, just do the dip, bread, dip, bread thing.
Once that’s all mixed up, stir together the breading mixture on a paper plate (I love paper plates for stuff like this – make and then throw away the icky chicken covered, germy plate!)
Time to start dipping and breading! Be sure to have a greased baking sheet standing close by. (and remember, my Mom is watching you, so go lightly on that grease!)
Just dip, then shake off the excess and flop it around in the breading to coat it. Plop each piece straight onto the pan after you bread it.
Here’s a whole bunch of them on a pan. These are slightly larger “tenders” because Tim was hungry and he’s a grown up man with big hands and can handle the biggie sized tenders. Yep, no kids in our house and no Mom standing over my shoulder, looking down her lovely patrician nose at my portion sizes. =)
Pop them into the oven till brown and crispy, then serve them with a side of creamy dipping sauce and dinner is served!
See there? I did cut some small Mom-sized tenders just for the picture!
- 3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast halves
- 1 Cup Mayonnaise
- 4 Tablespoons Spicy Brown Mustard - can substitute Ranch or Creamy Italian Dressing
- ¼ Cup Milk or Water
- 1 Cup Bread Crumbs
- 1 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
- 1 teaspoon Pepper
- 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder, Onion Powder and Paprika
- Preheat the oven to 400F
- Slice the chicken breasts into 1 inch thick slices, then cut across them to make small 3 inch pieces. Try to cut diagonally where possible so that they resemble chicken tenders. Set aside.
- Mix together the mayonnaise, mustard and milk, or water, in a medium sized bowl till smooth.
- On a paper plate, mix together the bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and spices.
- Dip the chicken into the mayonnaise mixture, then coat with the crumbs. Shake off any excess, then place them on a lightly greased large baking pan.
- Bake at 400F for 15 minutes or till crispy, golden brown and cooked through.
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