You guyssss!!! I’m so excited to share this latest recipe with you.

It’s so freaking good, I can’t even!

Perfectly crisp-y oven-baked chicken bites, dunked in a delicious sriracha and maple syrup glaze. Crispy, juicy, sweet, spicy, limey, garlicky, I mean, need I go on?

The point is, these little nuggets are JAM PACKED with flavour and you need them in your lives.

Like, right now.

This recipe was actually born out of not wanting to waste food. You know when you buy multipacks of crisps and there is always the dreaded ready salted bags left…

Neither me or Mr Man are even slightly interested in them. They largely just go ignored for weeks months at a time.

Well, it turns out they don’t need to go unloved any more because they make a brilliant chicken coating (or fish/tofu/mushrooms/or whatever you have to hand, tbh).

You just smush them up into little pieces and use them in the final stage of the usual three step flour – egg – breadcrumbs coating technique, before popping them in the oven. They come out looking like this:

You don’t have to make a sriracha and maple syrup sauce, you can pretty much serve them any way you like – e.g. with a dip of choice (I’m thinking BBQ sauce), in a wrap etc. Having said that, I do highly encourage you try it this way:

If your spice tolerance is low, use less sriracha, if it’s high – crank up the heat by toning down the maple syrup. Like citrus – use an extra lime. You get the gist, it’s totally customisable.

Whichever way you opt for, I promise you’re in for a real treat!

Enjoy,

– Kay

 

Ingredients

Crispy chicken bites

• 500g chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes (optional: marinade the chicken in buttermilk for 20mins – a few hours beforehand)
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp light brown muscovado sugar (optional)
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 150g crushed crisps
• 2 medium eggs, whisked

Sriracha, maple syrup and lime sauce

• 175g sriracha
• 75g ketchup
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 160g maple syrup
• Juice and zest of a lime
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 50ml water

To serve

• Rice
• 2 x spring onions, sliced
• 2 small chillis, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• Lime

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 (200).
2. Any baking tray will do but for the best results, I’d recommend using a baking tray with a rack – this will lead to maximum crispiness as the heat can circulate the chicken without it getting soggy. Use one tbsp of oil to grease the rack so the chicken doesn’t stick.
3. Mix the flour, garlic powder, brown sugar, paprika and salt and pepper in a bowl.
4. Arrange three bowls for dunking your chicken – the flour mix, the two eggs and the crushed crisps.
5. Working in 3-4 batches, first coat your chicken cubes in the seasoned flour.
6. Dust off any excess flour before dipping into the eggs.
7. Shake off any excess egg mixture before coating in crisp crumbs.
8. Place the chicken on your prepared baking tray rack.
9. Repeat with remaining batches of chicken.
10. Place in the preheated oven for 18minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
11. Whilst the chicken cooks, you can prep the sauce: add all the ingredients to a medium saucepan. Mix well to combine, heat on low until the mixture just starts to bubble.
12. When the chicken is done, toss it in the prepared sauce to coat well and serve over rice – drizzle on some extra sauce and top with sesame seeds, sliced spring onions, a wedge of lime and extra chillis as desired.

TIP: if you want your chicken crispy, toss in the sauce just before serving!