Comfort Food
For some reason when the weather gets cooler I crave comfort foods. I don’t think I’m the only one. Comfort foods and an anti-inflammatory diet don’t seem to go together, until now. I have created this breaded chicken recipe to take the place of one of the comfort foods my mother use to make for us when we were kids. Even as an adult I remember a time when we were living in New Mexico and she knew I was having a rough time and she made the trusty old breaded chicken drumettes! I think a challenging part of staying motivated after changing what you eat is memories associated with certain foods. Not only at the holidays, but just regular family dinners. I always do a little happy dance in my kitchen when I really feel like I’ve captured the essence of a meal that I use to love that my mom or another loved one would make for me. (Think Cabbage Patch, throw in a little Roger Rabbit and possibly the Running Man or 5 for good measure!)-How old am I?
Here we go, correct me if I’m wrong mom, but it is drumettes dipped in butter, then tossed in breadcrumbs that have been seasoned or even just tossed in seasoned breadcrumbs you can buy in the can.
My version obviously doesn’t use butter or breadcrumbs, but it is just as good if not better and is much healthier for you. I have tried it with various mixtures of flours, coconut flour, almond meal, cassava flour, sunflower flour etc., but what I’ve found that gives the comfort taste that I was looking for was just Super Fine Almond Flour. So if you have almonds in your diet, you are going to love these drumettes.
As with other recipes I have done this is a great base recipe. Add any spices that you happen to like and can tolerate. I like this basic recipe the best, probably because it reminds me of what my mom would make, but go crazy, add herbs, add onion powder, turmeric, cumin or coriander, live it up!
Ingredients
- 1 package of chicken drumettes (usually about 12 little drumettes in a package)
- 1 C of Super Fine Almond Flour Depending on the size of the drumettes you may need a little more or less.
- 1 tsp of sea salt (I've tried coarse salt and fine and I prefer fine) I may have used more than 1tsp a time or two, so play with it.
- 1 tsp of granulated garlic add a little more if you really want a garlic punch!
- 1/2 tsp black pepper (omit if following AIP)
- 1/4 C Avocado Oil (start with less and add more if needed)
- Avocado Oil spray
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
- Spray a 7x11 dish with avocado oil (you can use a 9x13 pan as well, I use a glass dish.)
- Pour Avocado oil into a bowl and set aside.
- In a bowl or on a plate combine all dry ingredients; almond flour, salt, granulated garlic and pepper.
- Set up your stations: All the way to your left have your chicken, to the right of the chicken place bowl of avocado oil, to the right of the oil have the plate/bowl of dry ingredients, to the right of the dry ingredients have the prepared 7x11 glass dish.
- Now to dip the chicken. I use my left hand as the "wet ingredient" hand and my right hand as my "dry ingredient" hand.
- Using your left hand dip a drumette into the oil letting the excess oil drip off, then with the same hand place drumette into your dry ingredients. With your "dry" hand (my right) toss the drummette in the dry ingredients and place in pan.
- I place every other one facing the same direction so I can get them all in the pan.
- Continue until you have breaded all of your chicken.
- Pour any extra avocado oil that didn't get used over the already breaded chicken in the pan.
- Place in oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees
- You can stop there, but I like to turn on the broiler and broil them for a minute or two to really bring out that nutty flavor as well as a little crunch.
- These are piping hot out of the oven so make sure to let them cool a few minutes before you bite into them.
- Optional: After all chicken is removed from pan, scrape the bottom of the pan for the "breading" deliciousness that is left over. It is addicting and my kids go absolutely crazy for this, me too!
After the drumettes were eaten the boys started scraping the bottom for all the yummy bits. I may have helped a bit myself!
You can use this recipe with almost any cut of chicken, I have a tendency to cook chicken on the bone, the cave woman in me! I usually cook two batches at a time since I eat about 6 breaded chicken drummettes at a meal. That would mean only two meals out of this and if I’m going to spend the time I want to make it worthwhile, double or triple batch at least! Make sure you scrape up all the tasty bits left in the pan, it’s seriously addicting. Nutty, crunchy, salty goodness!
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Please let me know in the comments below how your chicken turns out. If you changed it up a bit let me know what you did and if it was successful or not!
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2 comments
Yes, dipped in butter and then crumbs. I’d like a sample of your recipe sometime. It sounds great!
Thank you Mom! It’s so hard to share them, but for you I will! Love you.