Chicken and Waffles!

This has recently become a huge thing, Chicken and Waffles, at least around my neck of the woods.
It's coming back in a big way in restaurants with fun, new twists on this old classic.

It's one of my boyfriends new favorites and when we couldn't decide what to do for dinner, he came home with the basic ingredients: chicken and bread crumbs - and I got to work!

 

I love the combination of sweet, salty and spicy. And this dish traditionally is big on sweet and salty so I combined all the flavors together for a delicious and satisfying treat!

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 lb chicken breast tenders
• 2 cups panko bread crumbs
• 2 cups flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 tbs onion powder
• 1 tbs seasoning powder (natures seasons or kirkland no salt seasoning)
• 2 tbs red pepper flake
• salt and pepper 
• 1 cup vegetable oil

Set out 2 plates and a bowl. Crack the eggs in the bowl and beat them. In one dish mix flour with garlic powder, onion powder, seasoning powder, and 1 tbs of red pepper flake. In the remaining dish, combine bread crumbs and the other 1 tbs of red pepper flake. (If you don't like the heat you can leave out the red pepper flake, or use less). Season the chicken tenders with salt and pepper (check your seasoning powder to see if it has salt in it, if so you may want to pass on salting the chicken, or use less salt. Also, Costco has a really great "no salt seasoning mix" that I used for this recipe.) 

Next, set up your station in a row - flour dish, egg bowl, panko dish.

Coat the chicken tender in the flour mixture first, then egg, then panko - set chicken tender aside and repeat.

In a sauce pan, heat vegetable oil - you want a shallow bath for the chicken so it is not quite covered, only about half way. Make sure the oil is really hot, you can check the oil by sprinkling in a little flour and if the oil "sizzles" then it's ready.

Make sure to not over crowd the pan, over crowding the pan will lower the temperature of the oil and you won't get that nice brown, crunchy chicken you are looking for. Once both sides of chicken are nice and brown (about 3 minutes on each side) remove and place on a dish lined with a paper towel. Repeat until all of your chicken is done.

For the waffles:

Since this was a last minute dinner decision, I cheated and used a waffle mix.

These days there are so many different waffle mixes and many of them are just as good as a home mixed batter.

Serve the chicken atop a buttered waffle, and drizzle with maple syrup.

For an extra kick and more spice you can add siracha to the top of your chicken as well.

Enjoy!!