Gut Thinking & Nutrition

One of my favorite comfort foods is chicken nuggets. No, not the greasy, fast food kinds you can get with all sorts of corn-syrupy dipping sauces. I mean good old fashioned, homemade, delicious, wholesome, tasty morsels of tender, juicy fried chicken. And gluten-free to boot.

Plus, it’s extremely easy to fry up a batch, and if you roast up some brussel sprouts or sweet potato fries, you’ll have double the deliciousness to dip.

Gluten-Free Chicken Nuggets

• 1 1/2 lbs boneless chicken breasts (I prefer to use Rocky chicken, it tastes the best!)
• 1/2 – 3/4 c buttermilk
• flour blend: 1/4 c millet, 1/4 c buckwheat, 1/4 cup sorghum (you can try others, but I’ve found this combo to produce the crispiest crust)
• garlic powder
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil (enough to cover the entire bottom of a non-stick skillet, be a little generous)

Remove the skin from the chicken if it comes with it (this is a special treat for my dogs) and trim the chicken breasts into chunks that are about a 1″ cube or similar size (small trimmed pieces are special treats for my cats – EVERYONE loves chicken nugget night in my house!) and then put all the chicken chunks in a bowl. Pour enough buttermilk over it to cover it and let soak for a few minutes while you mix up your flour mix.

Pour the olive oil in your skillet – I like to use a 12″ one for 1 1/2 lbs chicken. Go ahead and turn it on to medium high heat so it’s ready when you start adding the nuggets.

One of the best ways to get the flour on the nuggets is to put the flours in a bag, add some garlic, salt, and pepper, and then add the nuggets piece by piece (don’t just pour the bowl with buttermilk into the bag of flours). Or you can use a container with a snap on lid. And then shake the heck out of them, until they’re completely coated!

Once the oil is hot (test if you like by sprinkling a drop of water into the pan), you can start laying the nuggets, one at a time, into the pan. Start on the outside and make a ring, then work your way in. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder after you get them in the pan.

After a couple of minutes, gingerly start turning them over – a fork is really helpful, just don’t scratch the pan. Once all turned over, sprinkle again with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Now you’re just going to be tending them for a couple of more minutes, while they start to brown, so go ahead and make sure the ones that are not browning all around get some attention.

Once done, serve up on a couple of plates (we love them so much that two of us will polish off this amount, but this could also easily serve three with side dishes) and mix up a dip. My favorite is to take 2 tbsp of mayonnaise and about a tsp of dijon mustard, and press a clove of raw garlic into the dip bowl, mix up, and serve. I’m a garlic lover, so that’s my favorite, but make sure you try yours and let me know how you like it!