Chicken nuggets recipe – Learn how to make chicken nuggets at home. Chicken nuggets are one of the most commonly eaten dish in fast food restaurants. These are made either of meat slurry & ground chicken or chicken breasts. The nuggets made of meat slurry are highly processed and unhealthy when compared to the ones made using chicken breasts.
Meat slurry is added to ground chicken then shaped to nuggets or even used to make patties for chicken burger. Frozen nuggets or the ones made using ground meat & slurry are highly unhealthy and made under unhygienic conditions.
In any good standard restaurants, one can find nuggets made of chicken breasts or ground meat with cheese. The chicken nuggets recipe I am sharing here is made of breasts with mild flavoring, you can add up your own flavors to suit your taste.
Most places one can find chicken nuggets that are mildly favored to hot and spicy. They can be of any size or shape. But usually nuggets are made about 1.5 * 1.5 inches. These chicken nuggets turn out crispy with a soft, juicy and delicious texture from inside. These can be eaten even by toddlers.
For more chicken recipes, you may like to check
Popcorn chicken
KFC Fried chicken
Chicken burger
Crispy chicken pakora
Chicken manchurian
Preparation
Brining for chicken nuggets recipe
1. You can skip this step, if you have tender meat. To keep the chicken juicy, soft and tender, I prefer to brine it for at least 2 hours to overnight in buttermilk or salted vinegar solution for most of my fried chicken recipes. Otherwise the meat turns tough resulting in chewy & fibrous chunks. To make buttermilk, add 1/4 cup plain curd / yogurt to 1.5 cups of water along with 1/4 tsp salt. Whisk well and add the washed and cubed chicken. Leave it to rest for 2 hours to overnight in the fridge. Drain up the buttermilk and set aside just before you want to make the nuggets.
Preparation for chicken nuggets
2. Sprinkle your favorite seasoning. I used freshly ground pepper and all spice. You can add 1/4 tsp of all spice powder or half tsp garam masala, 1 tsp ginger garlic paste, red chilli powder or paprika. You can also replace ginger garlic paste with 1/4 tsp each of ginger and garlic powder. Toss well and set aside until you prepare the rest.
3. We will need 3 wide bowls – 1 for egg, 1 for bread crumbs and the other for flour.
I used organic egg.
Unseasoned homemade bread crumbs.
Organic unbleached plain flour/ maida – added pepper, bit of salt and all spice. Mixed up and check the salt.
Beat the egg well set aside. If using packed bread crumbs, choose one that doesn’t have MSG in it. Usually corn flour is added to get the right crunch, but you will really not feel the difference if you replace with plain flour since nuggets are breaded.
How to make chicken nuggets
4. Get the moist chicken and put them in the flour. Coat them well. Make sure the meat is moist else it doesn’t coat the flour well.
5. Take off each of these with a tong and add to the beaten egg. Coat them well with the egg.
6. Immediately place them in the bread crumbs. Coat them well again.
7. Allow them to rest for about 10 minutes. This allows the bread crumbs to stick on well.
Frying chicken nuggets
8. Heat oil in a deep pan. Make sure the oil is not very hot, before you drop the chicken in the pan. It will brown the chicken nuggets without cooking well inside. When the oil is hot enough, Shake off the chicken nuggets a bit in the plate. This way any excess bread crumbs will fall off in the plate. Drop them one after the other. Fry them in batches.
9. Keep stirring and fry evenly until golden. Drain them on a kitchen tissue.
Serve chicken nuggets hot with ketchup or a cup of black tea.
Related Recipes
Chicken nuggets
For best results follow the step-by-step photos above the recipe card
Ingredients (1 cup = 240ml )
- 250 grams chicken breast cubed
- ¼ to ½ cup all-purpose flour or maida (prefer organic)
- ¼ tsp salt or as needed
- ¼ to ½ tsp pepper powder
- ½ tsp garam masala or ¼ tsp all spice powder
- 1 tsp ginger garlic paste or ¼ tsp each in powder form (optional)
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup bread crumbs
for brine or tenderize the chicken
- ¼ cup curd or yogurt or 2 tbsp vinegar
- 1.5 cups water
- 1/8 tsp salt
Instructions
Preparation for chicken nuggets
- Brine the chicken in salted buttermilk for 2 hours to overnight. Keep refrigerated.
- Drain it completely and sprinkle half of the pepper powder and spice powder. Mix well.
- Add little salt, rest of the pepper powder and spice powder to the flour. Mix well.
- Beat the egg in a different bowl.
- Transfer the bread crumbs to another bowl.
- Coat the moist chicken in flour, then dip in the egg mixture. Then coat in bread crumbs. Repeat this for all the nuggets.
- Rest them for 10 mins. Heat oil in a pan.
How to make chicken nuggets
- Heat oil in a deep pan. Check if the oil is hot by dropping a bread crumb. If the oil is ready, bread crumb comes up without browning too quickly.
- Shake off the excess crumbs and fry until golden, Drain them on a kitchen tissue.
- Serve chicken nuggets hot with your favorite dip or sauce.
Alternative quantities provided in the recipe card are for 1x only, original recipe.
For best results follow my detailed step-by-step photo instructions and tips above the recipe card.
NUTRITION INFO (estimation only)
© Swasthi’s Recipes
Saritha Cuddapah says
Hi,
I love ur recipes and have tried some too. I have a question, my kids are allergic to egg but they can eat chicken and fish. While preparing chicken patties or nuggets, I can’t use egg to coat them in bread crumbs. Can u please give me an alternative for egg. I want to prepare them at home especially now during the pandemic – I don’t want to go for frozen foods. Ur tip will be very helpful. Thank u.
swasthi says
Hi Saritha
Thank you! You can use thick buttermilk (yogurt diluted with water). Egg is used in many recipes to retain the juices in the meat so they don’t turn hard after frying. Buttermilk to some extent works well if the chicken is brined overnight. So I usually soak it in plain buttermilk overnight. The next day drain and then again dip in thick buttermilk and then crumb them. The other option is to make a batter of besan / gram flour. Hope this helps.
Reshma says
Hi,
Can we bake this?
If so at what temperature and how many minutes ?
Thanks
NGO says
Hello Swasthi,
What can I use for coating the nuggets, instead of the egg?
Thanks in advance.
swasthi says
Hello
You can make a batter with any gram flour/besan or maida. Even wheat flour works but the flavor will be different. The consistency should be same as that of beaten egg. Not too thick and not very runny
Amreen says
I tried chicken nuggets step by step by your recipe..it was so yummy and crispy.
Thank you for sharing your recipe.
swasthi says
Welcome Amreen
Glad they turned out good.
Sengberth Sangms says
Very nice recipe. Steps are easy to follow.
swasthi says
Thank you
J.J says
Yeah thanks.
What a lovely recipe, Keep up the good work
Shalee says
Hi swasthi, what is plain flour? Is it rice flour?
swasthi says
Hi shalee
Plain flour is maida. You can also use rice flour
shbnm says
All recipes are fabulous
Bishnu Raj KC says
Following your instruction here in Nepal and its quite started working. Keep up the good work dear.
swasthi says
Thanks Bishnu Raj
Happy to know the instructions are useful
Simmi says
Which bread crumbs you use.
Fresh bread slice grind it.
Bread slice toast then grind it.
swasthi says
Toasted bread then pulse it
Aruna says
I prepared your chicken nuggets. Why does the oil become frothy.
Otherwise regarding taste it’s good
swasthi says
Hi Aruna,
There are a few reasons for the oil foaming up or turning frothy
1. Too much moisture in the nuggets. Hope you followed the recipe as it is . i.e using dry flour to coat the chicken first to remove excess moisture. This can also happen due to too much of egg mixture on the nuggets or not enough bread crumbs to remove excess moisture.
2. Secondly, using too much oil for frying nuggets can make the entire pan foamy. Use oil just to barely immerse the nuggets. You can see in the pics. Too much oil or too much moisture can also cause foam.
3. beating the egg a lot can also make this.
4. Thirdly the quality of oil or making use of used oil. For any recipe, I highly recommend using fresh oil for deep frying.
Hope these help you
Niki says
Can I skip Egg in chicken nuggets or chicken popcorn recipe? I am allergic to egg
swasthi says
Hi Niki
Yes you can skip. make a batter using little plain flour and milk. Beat the batter very well. Then use it inplace of egg. Hope this helps.
As"ccfgvbnkvb says
I like it, nice
Very useful
swasthi says
Thanks
As"ccfgvbnkvb says
I like it ,
Nice very useful
vidhya says
Hi Madam,
The recipe looks yummy. Can we replace maida with any other flour? Please advise
swasthi says
Hi Vidhya
Not sure, may be rice flour and corn flour in equal quantities may work.
Priya Varghese says
Dear Swasthi,
I have been trying your recipes for the past one month and I couldn’t stop myself from penning down my appreciation. Your recipes are great and the taste is awesome. 🙂
I tried the KFC fried chicken recipe and it tasted awesome (my 7 year old loved it) however, since my hubby prefers more spice, I tried the chicken nugget recipe and instead of bread crumbs I used slightly crushed oats. Look was exactly like KFC fried chicken and taste was amazing with the required spice. So it turned out really nice. Thank you dear 🙂 Now both hubby and Ryan – my son enjoy it.
A quick question – instead of maida can I use corn flour?
Thanks,
Priya
swasthi says
Hi Priya
You are welcome
I am really sorry for the late reply. I am a bit busy with the kids’ holidays. Very glad to know you liked the recipes. Yes you can also use corn flour, I try to minimise corn flour since I am unable to find organic corn flour. Corn flour is heavily processed and it is hard to find organic one. SO i have used organic maida here. YOu can use both the flours.
Have a wonderful week ahead
Manisha says
Made these. Turned out very good. Thanks
swasthi says
Welcome Manisha
manzoura says
excellent
swasthi says
Thanks
Aishatu says
Simply awesome!
swasthi says
Thanks Aishatu
Aishatu says
I really love these recipes. They are just great. Thanks!
swasthi says
Welcome & Thanks Aishatu.
Glad to know you liked them
Sita says
My kids helped with the preparation and had fun. The chicken nuggets turned out pretty good.
Is it possible to bake them instead of frying?
swasthi says
Yes you can bake them, but they will not be as crunchy as this.
Bhavani says
This is wonderful site. Thank you for providing such awesome recipes that to in detail with pictures. I tried some recipes and result is very tasty.
swasthi says
Hi Bhavani
You are welcome. Glad to know the recipes turned out good. Thanks for the feedback