Saturday, January 17, 2009

fried chicken that's good for you?

Well yes, you read correctly. I made oven-fried chicken last night and it was quite delicious! This recipe was of course from Cooking Light (thanks again Heather!). This particular recipe is from a spread where they compare the certain dish with one you would maybe have at a fast food restaurant and then a healthier version you can make at home. Just because I love my readers so much I will share the love:

Buttermilk Oven-Fried Chicken

1 cup low-fat buttermilk
4 (8 oz.) bone-in chicken breast halves, skinned (I went with boneless)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cracker meal
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 tbsp. butter

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. To prepare chicken, combine buttermilk and chicken in a shallow dish, turning to coat.
3. Combine flour and cracker meal in a shallow dish. Transfer chicken from buttermilk to a work surface. Sprinkle chicken with part of the salt and pepper. Working with one chicken breast half at a time, dredge chicken in flour mixture, shaking off excess; set aside. Repeat procedure with remaining chicken and flour mixture.
4. Melt butter in a large ovenproof non-stick skillet over med-high heat. Add chicken to pan, meat side down; cook 4 minutes or until golden brown. Turn chicken over, and back at 425 for 32 minutes or until a thermometer registers 165 degrees.

Here's a few helpful tips:
If you don't have buttermilk and don't use it often so you don't want to buy a carton of it you can do this: mix 1 cup of milk with 1 Tbsp. of vinegar and voila! You have your cup of buttermilk! Another tip is: if you don't know what cracker meal is or you don't want to buy a whole bag for just a little bit you can finely crush 10 Ritz crackers (which is what I did) and there you have your own homemade cracker meal!

Here's the difference in fast food facts and the homemade healthy version:
Fast food:
Calories: 540
Fat: 31 grams
Sodium: 1, 290 milligrams

Homemade healthy:
Calories: 342
Fat: 8.8 grams
Sodium: 672 milligrams

Now doesn't that make you just now want to eat fast food? Hope you enjoy!

2 comments:

Heather said...

Sounds like I'll have to make this one for P. He's always craving some fried chicken. Yummo!

KMK said...

You can also "season up" your dry ingredients....like adding some red pepper so it has a Bojangles kick (I know how you miss that place)!