Baked Chicken Chex Nuggets

I have been meaning to start playing around with different types of bread crumb substitutes for breading gluten-free dishes. There are so many recipes that I want to try that include breaded chicken, fish, cheese, and vegetables, so I want to figure out what substitute is the tastiest and holds up the best.

I had some Corn Chex cereal at home, so I decided to use that. (Rice Chex, Corn Chex, Honey Nut Chex, Chocolate Chex, and Cinnamon Chex are all gluten free!)

I used the simple recipe from Chex.com for Favorite chicken nuggets  

3 cups Corn Chex® cereal

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

3 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

1 tablespoon milk

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1x1-inch pieces

Heat oven to 400°F. Line cookie sheet with foil. Crush cereal. (To easily crush cereal, place in plastic bag or between sheets of waxed paper, and crush with rolling pin.)

In medium bowl, stir together crushed cereal, cheese, salt, seasoned salt, paprika and garlic powder. In small bowl, stir together melted butter and milk. Dip chicken into butter mixture, then roll in cereal mixture to coat evenly. Place on cookie sheet.

Bake 9 minutes; turn nuggets over. Bake about 8 minutes longer or until coating is light golden brown and chicken is no longer pink in center.

This is chicken dish number 4 or 5 for me. I am starting to get a little more used to it, but I still freak out and make grossed out sounds like a little girl being chased with a worm every time I have to touch it.. (Even when I am alone, I can't help it, it is GROSS) In fact, I am still so grossed out by raw chicken that it is affecting my taste for poultry. I can't eat it without thinking about it being raw and jello-y.. EW EW EWWWWWWWWWWW.

maybe learning how to cook chicken was a bad idea after all.

The finished nuggets were pretty tasty, the chex mix added a little crunch, but I was a bit disappointed in how mushy the cereal was in some places. It was flavorful though- I think the parmesan was the best part and will definitely include that in my breading testing in the future.

****UPDATE****

I re-made the nuggets last night with MUCH better results!

I made my 'breading' mixture with 

1.5 c smashed chex cereal 

1/2 c grated parmesan cheese

1/2 c gluten free all purpose rice flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp onion powder

Then, Instead of using an egg mixture, I minced up 2 cloves of garlic, put it in a pot with 1/2 c butter and let that melt down, and coated the chicken pieces with the garlic butter before coating with the breading mixture.

I baked them at 350° for about 20 mins and then flipped them and cooked for another 5 minutes.

They are SO much crunchier and better.