Since I promised to repost it for folks, here’s my customized recipe for garlic parmesan chicken that I typed up a while ago. It involves a small amount of ‘winging it’, as does most of my cooking; whenever I try to quantify things exactly, it never turns out quite as good.
Baked Garlic Parmesan Chicken Nuggets
2 lbs boneless/skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins
1 stick unsalted butter
1 clove garlic
1tsp (kosher) salt (we use kosher salt almost exclusively these days, its much better than
table salt and we highly recommend it for most applications)
1/8th tsp freshly ground black pepper – vary to taste
1tsp Italian seasoning (we often just substituted oregano or other bits of seasoning to
taste, you want something a bit green mixed in for appearance as well as taste)
1tsp garlic salt (we sometimes add some garlic-pepper as well, being garlic fans, or just
extra garlic powder)
1/3 to 1/2cup shredded parmesan cheese – you can use grated, but it won’ t be quite the
same
1 cups (Panko) bread crumbs – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panko can get them from
amazon.com and other places, becoming more common in stores now, as well.
Preheat oven to 450deg F.
Chop the chicken into whatever sized chunks you desire; smaller chunks will require
doubling the breadcrumbs and seasonings due to the increased surface area to coat. We
tend to have just enough for 1lb of chicken rather than 2lb when we do ours, we like the
small pieces because the breading is excellent.
Melt the butter, and mince the garlic clove into the melted butter and stir well. If you
don’ t have fresh garlic, dried minced garlic works, a couple teaspoons or so.
Mix the breadcrumbs, parmesan, and other seasonings together in another bowl. Take the
chicken pieces, dunk them in the butter-garlic mix, then roll in the breadcrumb mixture to
coat well. Place in a 13×9 Pyrex baking dish (or whatever equivalent you have around),
and cover the bottom then start filling in the gaps to have a uniform thickness for safer
cooking.
When done, I take whatever bit of butter is left and mix it in with the remaining
breadcrumbs, then sprinkle it all over top of the baking dish to cook. It helps create an
even crisper coating on the top pieces of chicken. Bake for 15-20minutes at 450deg F, be
sure to check doneness on a large piece when done. Should have a lightly browned look
across the top.
Serve as fingerfood (hot or cold) or as part of a larger meal, I think it goes great with
pasta and various red sauces. Hope you enjoy! I couldn’t find the original website we
got the recipe from, and we’ve varied it up somewhat (mainly in using smaller chicken
pieces and more garlic).
