Like I had mentioned before on a previous post, like most normal people who travel a lot, I do not travel with my deep fryer. That being said, I have no other option but to get baked. In our house the preference of fried food is definitely extra crispy. We love that extra crunch you can put into your food and I used to struggle to find that balance until I experimented long enough to find the perfect method to crispy oven baked “fried” foods. Not only is it a healthier alternative, but it is a cleaner alternative. No more cleaning out the deep fryer and responsibility discarding a half a gallon of used oil, unless you have one of those cars that run on oil then in that case you are way cooler than I ‘ll ever be. This no fry fried chicken tenders are a great way to responsibility teach your little ones a healthier alternative to frying.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1-2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast

1/3 cup of flour, seasoned with salt and pepper

2 large eggs

1 cup plain bread crumbs

1 cup corn flakes

salt and pepper

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preheat you oven to 425 degrees F.

Let’s set up your dredging station, starting with flour seasoned with about a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Next is your wet dredge of egg, whisked and season with salt and pepper. Lastly, your cornflake dredge. You are going to want to crush the cornflakes up using your hands and mix with the bread crumbs and season with 1 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Mix 3 tablespoons of oil into the cornflake mixture and toss.

Slice your chicken breast into 1 to 1 1/2 inch thick strips. They don’t have to look uniform or pretty.

Starting with the flour, roll the chicken in the flour shaking off the excess and next into the egg allowing the excess to drip off. Lastly bread chicken in the cornflake mixture pressing the batter into the chicken. This is going to get messy but that’s ok that’s what hand soap is for!

On a large rimmed baking sheet, place the chicken in a single layer. Bake in over 20 minutes or until golden flipping halfway through and the internal temperature is 165 degrees F. I found that you aren’t going to want to use a silpat or parchment paper for this recipe because it doesn’t get the chicken crispy or golden. While testing this recipe the first couple times with a silpat, I was broiling both sides of the chicken the last few minutes to get them crispy and that just didn’t make sense.

Remove from oven and serve with your choice of dipping sauces. I served these with my crispy seasoned steak wedges (baked) from my previous post. Or make my roasted vegetables from my Fregola salad post

Masarap!