Another "fake" fried chicken...WHAT?!?!

My husband LOVES fried chicken. But, neither one of us want to look as though we have consumed a lot of fried chicken. We work hard at the gym and we don't want all of those sweaty minutes to go to waste. So, I found a recipe that used buttermilk to coat the chicken and instead of using buttermilk I used greek yogurt. The results were mighty, mighty tasty...if I do say so myself.

Faux Fried Chicken
Marinade Ingredients
1 c. plain greek yogurt
1 T. mustard
2 cloves minced garlic
salt and pepper

Whisk the above ingredients together and top chicken with it. Marinade for 2-3 hours.

Resealable Bag Ingredients ("It's Shake N Bake and I helped!" ~couldn't help but add this in!)
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 1/2 t. paprika
1 t. baking powder
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Remove chicken from marinade. Shake off excess marinade. Put chicken into bag and shake.

Cover baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place wire racks on baking sheet. Coat the wire racks with nonstick spray. Place chicken on wire racks.

Bake for 40 minutes. (half way through baking, flip chicken)

Easy Chicken Nuggets

We just came back from a quick trip to Florida and we are about to embark on another quick trip to South Carolina, so there was no way I was going to go to the grocery store...nor did I want to go out to eat...so I scoured the freezer in hopes that I would find something easy and HEALTHY to whip up!

Frozen chicken breasts, frozen veggies and rice! PERFECT-O!

This is a take on my mom's chicken nugget recipe...I couldn't tell you how she makes it exactly...but, this is a spinoff.  It's important to flour the chicken, then to coat it in an egg wash and then cover in a bread crumb mixture. Now, I used to dip each piece of chicken in each and this ended up making a HUGE mess. This time, I made a GIGANTIC change that eliminated the mess and honestly, I think the chicken came out the best it ever has!

Easy Chicken Nuggets
Ingredients
chicken breast (I only used 1 for 2 of us)
1 c. flour (whole wheat works too)
1 egg white
3/4 c. Italian bread crumbs
1 t. minced garlic
1 t. tomato and garlic seasoning (really add in whatever spices you enjoy to the bread crumbs)
salt and pepper
1 or 2 resealable bags
1/4 c. water


Step By Step
1. Cut the chicken breasts into pieces. Dip into the flour. (Spray a pan with non stick spray and turn the pan on med-low...cover)
2. Put the chicken into the resealable bag. Pour in the egg white. Make sure the egg white covers the chicken. You can either keep this bag and pour the bread crumbs, garlic and seasonings in or use another bag. (depends on how much egg white is left over in the bag). Either way, make sure you shake the bag around so the chicken is covered).

3. Put the chicken in the pan and cover. Cook for a few minutes. Uncover, pour the water into the pan and then turn the chicken. Cook until the chicken is no longer pink. 

All in all, this recipe can come together and cook within 20 minutes. We paired it with steamed veggies and 7 minute rice. One of my favs!

Spicy Healthy Hot Wings at HOME!

The Super Bowl is almost here! Time to invite friends and family over for your Super Bowl party...whether you watch it for the game or the commercials, one thing is for sure...you MUST have wings to make your party complete!

Now, I LOVE wings. But, I DON'T love how I feel after I eat them. They are a bit too much to handle when the majority of the time I eat very well. So, I wanted to come up with a recipe that would just as tasty as any hot wing we had ever had, but without all of the extra fat and calories. So, I didn't bread them or fry them. I did pull out the crock pot...

One thing I will suggest if you are going to try this recipe, make sure you have baking sheets that have raised edges otherwise, when you broil the wings, the juice will make an awful mess of your oven. (ours is self cleaning right now!)

Spicy Healthy Hot Wings
Ingredients
12 full wings (frozen or fresh)
1 t. red pepper flakes
4 garlic cloves
1/2 t. onion salt
1/2c. light beer
23 fl. oz. Frank's Red Hot Sauce

Step by Step Directions
Mix all of the dry ingredients in with the beer and half of the Frank's Red Hot. Place the wings into the crock pot. Pour the remaining Frank's over the wings.

If frozen, cook on low for 7 hours. If fresh, cook on high for 2-3 hours.

Be VERY careful after cooking the wings. They are VERY tender and will fall apart.
**I cooked the wings overnight and then refrigerated the wings all day.**

Carefully, place the wings on a greased (I used PAM) baking sheet.
Set the broiler to high, bake for 7-8 minutes.

Serve with blue cheese and celery!