Asian-style Chicken Nuggets

Hello 2015!  In this year, my love affair with chicken nuggets continues… lol.  These nuggets are really easy to make and were a big hit in our house!  A quick Asian marinade, fried until golden brown, and then drizzled with a lemon glaze… these chicken nuggets are a delicious twist on traditional nuggets.

I was bad when I made these and didn’t read the recipe fully beforehand, so I had no clue that the chicken needed to marinate for about 2 hours prior to frying…. whoops!  So instead the chicken took a swim in the marinade pool for about 30 minutes.  And guess what?  The flavor was still incredible!  So I can only imagine how amazing they would taste if they had the full 2 hour marinade… next time my friends, next time 🙂

I also deviated from the recipe in that it calls for boneless skinless chicken thighs, and what I had on hand was boneless skinless chicken breasts.  Even though chicken breasts have a tendency to get a bit dry, these cook so quickly that they didn’t dry out at all 🙂

These chicken nuggets would be great with some rice for a simple meal… I served mine with some steamed broccoli and my Crab Rangoons.  The chinese mustard sauce in that crab rangoon recipe is also terrific with these chicken nuggets  🙂

When I take my food pics for the blog, 9 times out of 10 I’m using leftovers that I reheat the next day (gotta have that daylight!), and with this meal, I didn’t think we’d have enough left to take the pics, but somehow we all filled up on the rangoons that were left and saved me some nuggets to photograph….. whew!

Alright, so enough of my blabbing… let’s get to the good stuff!

Mix up your marinade, dice up your chicken, and let them hang out for about 2 hours (or 30 minutes if you space out and forget like I did lol), then drain the chicken.

Toss your chicken with some flour while your oil heats up.

Fry your chicken in some oil.  I used peanut, but you could swap that out for some vegetable, canola, sunflower oil, etc.

As with all fried foods, remove the chicken and place on a paper towel lined plate to drain, and sprinkle with a little salt.  Try to resist eating a nugget… you know… just to “taste test”.  Fail at resisting and enjoy the nugget. 😉

While your chicken is draining, whisk together your glaze ingredients and heat for a couple of minutes.  Place chicken nuggets in a bowl and toss with that amazing glaze.  Alternatively, you could drizzle the glaze on, or serve it alongside as a dipping sauce 🙂

Recipe adapted from Damn Delicious

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Asian-style Chicken Nuggets

5 from 1 vote

Author: The Chunky Chef

Prep Time: 2 hours hours 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 2 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 servings

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Try this new twist on chicken nuggets... you'll love them!

Ingredients

• ▢ 4 tablespoons rice vinegar
• ▢ 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• ▢ 2 tablespoons mirin
• ▢ 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
• ▢ 3 cloves garlic minced
• ▢ 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• ▢ 4 green onions sliced
• ▢ 6 pieces boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into bite-size
• ▢ 1/3 cup flour
• ▢ 1 cup peanut oil
• ▢ FOR THE LEMON GLAZE
• ▢ 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• ▢ 3 tablespoons sugar
• ▢ 1 lemon zested and juiced
• ▢ 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Instructions

• In a large ziploc bag, whisk together the rice vinegar, soy sauce, mirin, sesame seed oil, garlic, ginger and green onions. Combine the marinade and chicken; marinate around 2 hours, turning the bag occasionally if you remember to.
• Drain the chicken from the marinade.
• In a bowl, combine the chicken and the flour.
• Heat peanut oil in a cast iron skillet to 350 degrees. Add the chicken and fry until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.
• To make the glaze, combine the rice vinegar, sugar, lemon zest and juice, cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water over medium low heat. Bring to a boil, simmering until thickened, about 1-2 minutes.
• Serve the chicken nuggets immediately, tossed or drizzled with the lemon glaze.

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Nutrition Disclaimer

The Chunky Chef is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and other nutritional values are important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories can vary quite a bit depending on which brands were used.

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