This post will show you how to make easy fried chicken with bread crumbs of your choice.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”. Well when it comes to culinary techniques, I’ll agree that there are a number of ways to achieve the same satisfying end result.
Use Whichever Cut of Chicken You Want
The great thing about home style cooking, like frying chicken, is that you can pretty much use any part of the chicken you want.
While I personally recommend taking boneless, skinless chicken breasts and following the following 3 steps to make it into a nice, thin piece of chicken cutlet:
- Place the chicken flat on a cutting board and slice it in half horizontally with a sharp knife.
- Place the chicken halves in separate plastic bags or in plastic wrap.
- Spread the plastic wrap tightly across the surface of the chicken and pound it to your desired thinness (typically 1/4 inch) with the smooth side of a mallet, rolling pin, a small skillet, or even your palm!
You can just as well use the chicken leg, chicken thigh, or chicken wings. It’s up to you!
Use Panko Or Make Your Own Bread Crumbs
The easiest option is, of course, to buy Panko brand bread crumbs and save yourself the effort of making your own (which is very easy, so read below for the instructions).
Of course, when you’re talking about home cooking, you may feel like introducing yourself to new topics.
So if you want to make your own easy bread crumbs at home, follow the 5 following steps:
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Remove the crusts from a loaf of white bread.
- Gently crumble it into coarse crumbs either with your hands, or a food processor.
- Spread crumbs onto a cookie sheet.
- Dry bread crumbs in the oven 7-10 minutes stirring after the first 5 minutes.
- Cool completely and store a cool dry place for up to 3 months.
- (Optional) Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne to taste.
Boom, now you’ve got your very own, homemade bread crumbs!
Pan Fry Breaded Chicken So it Sticks Together Better
I highly recommend you pan fry your chicken in a cast iron skillet for 2 main reasons.
- Deep Frying requires more movement for the chicken, which could cause the breaded exterior to flake off.
- Pan Frying allows you to monitor doneness much better.
To the first point, when you deep fry chicken, the chicken will move around in the oil.
I have personally experienced breading simply falling off and accumulating uselessly in the bottom of the fryer.
Therefore, I suggest you pan fry, which involves using a shallow batch of oil in a cast Iron skillet.
This will result in placing the chicken to rest in the pan without the risk of it jostling about, causing your crust to fall off.
Second, if you follow my point above recommending you use chicken cutlets for your easy bread crumbs fried chicken, then you’ll want to monitor the doneness cosely.
The reason being that chicken cutlets are very thin and will reach safe eating temperatures quickly. So if you keep them in a shallow batch of oil, you can monitor them with ease.
Recap
I highly recommend you look into using chicken cutlets for this recipe, as they’re so crispy and crunchy when you pan fry them.
Secondly, make your own bread crumbs if you really want to pack on the layers of flavor.
Third, pan fry your thinner cuts of meat for a juicier end result!
If you follow all of these steps, I’m sure you’ll end up with great fried chicken with bread crumbs!
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