RECIPE: Homemade Chicken nuggets
My son, Gabe, is not much of an eater. He’s super picky it’s annoying. During our meal time I let him watch videos from the ipad just to keep him amused and distracted, or he’d just run all over the place and tell me “no mama” when he sees the spoon full of chicken and rice coming to him. The only thing he’d eat are white rice, fries, chicken skin, chicken nuggets, lugaw, chips, chocolates, bananas, apples, mangoes and bacon. Or anything crispy.
So lately I came up with this idea of making my own chicken nuggets since I’m aware of how the factories process them. It’s disgusting. Making them on my own is a bit of a long process but the good part is I get to drop in some veggies and Gabe is not even aware of it. Insert evil laugh.
Feel free to make them for your kids. I find the molding part fun. And you can make a lot, freeze them individually over parchment paper and keep them for over a week.
Ingredients you need are:
Malunggay leaves (Moringa)
You can remove or add vegetables based on your preference.
1. Wash the vegetables and chop the carrots, potatoes onion and garlic into thin slices.
2. In a saute pan over medium heat, saute the onions, garlic, thinly sliced potatoes and carrots.
3. Over boiling water, put in the thawed and washed chicken breast. I don’t add salt to my water so I can control how much sodium goes into the batch. Make sure not to overcook the chicken breast. You know you’re done when the chicken meat doesn’t feel rubbery and would feel firm when poked by fork or spoon.
Bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts: cook about 30 minutes.
Skinless, boneless chicken breast halves: cook 15 to 20 minutes.
Skinless, boneless chicken breast cut into 2-inch pieces: cook about 10 minutes.
4. While it’s cooking, use a blender or food processor to grind up your oatmeal into something like bread crumbs.I use the nutribullet and can I just say, it’s amazing. When you’re done with the oatmeal breading, set it aside on a tray.
5. When the chicken breasts are already cooked, take it out but leave the water on simmer. Using a strainer, blanch the malunggay and kangkong leaves. Take them out right away. You don’t want them to wilt and turn brown. You just want the bright green color to come through. Once you’ve taken them out, put them over cold water or running water to stop the cooking.
6. Once everything is ready and cooked, put the chicken breast, leafy vegetables and the sauteed vegetables into the food processor/blender, crack in an egg or two depending on the proportion of your mixture. You can be able to eyeball this. Not to wet, not too flaky and dry. Add in a tsp of salt and another half cup/cup of oatmeal. This is just to bind the nuggets and to keep in all the moisture during cooking. Then pulse it until everything is a smooth consistency. I don’t add oil.
7. This is the fun part. You can buy small cookie cutters in shapes or you could just roll them out equally by hand and form them into whatever shape you want. I do mine thin so it crisps up well. Then I give it a good dredge over the ground oatmeal for breading. I make sure I don’t miss any sides so it’s crispy everywhere. Arrange them nicely onto a tray.
8. Heat your pan, add olive oil or canola oil, and fry until golden brown! :)
9. Season with salt and pepper again to taste. Let the kids eat it with bbq sauce or ketchup on the side! :D Yay!
Hope you try this recipe! I swear it’s fool proof and your kids will love it.
