Lately I’ve been trying to get more creative in the kitchen for dinner time which led to this sweet ‘n spicy boneless wings recipe! Monday-Friday I always cook us dinner. Saturdays we usually have leftovers or go out somewhere, and Sundays we always hangout with Ryan’s family and eat with them. After getting to the point where I was bored with cooking the same types of things, and bored with a lot things we ate, I decided to try and be a little more creative with dinner ideas which led me to Pinterest and food blogs! (Which I enjoyed so much I eventually decided start my own. :)) Lately I’ve been a little ambitious, making up new recipes or trying out ideas I see online. This has helped me get excited about cooking dinner again, and especially excited to eat it. Ryan and I love food.. So I’ve been enjoying cooking things we can actually look forward to eating and having some fun with it!
This week I had the idea to do an appetizers night! This is in no way healthy, but oh well. Once in awhile is fine. 😉 Ryan and I sometimes go to Applebee’s with our friends for “half-priced apps after 9” and we have a few go-to appetizers we love to order and share. We love the soft pretzels with beer cheese dip, and their sweet & spicy boneless wings! I thought it would be a really fun dinner to just make a bunch of appetizers and pig-out. Perfect for a fun Friday night in with a movie!
So for this dinner I obviously decided to make pretzels with beer cheese dip and sweet spicy boneless wings. I’ll be sharing how I made the wings below! Fried chicken is something my dad taught me how to make and its really delicious, but for these I wanted to try something totally new to make them REALLY crispy and thick like the boneless wings you get at a restaurant. Its definitely not how I’d make fried chicken normally, the breading was thicker than what I’d want for a normal chicken dinner, but for this purpose it was perfect. Just reallyyy messy. This sauce is something I make a lot to go on asian stir fry type dishes. Its sweet, spicy, and garlic-y. These tasted great dipped in the sweet spicy sauce, then in some ranch! Just like how we do it at Applebee’s or Buffalo Wild Wings. 🙂
Fried Chicken Ingredients:
-1 package (1-2 lbs) boneless chicken breasts (or actual boneless wings if you want..)
-1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk + 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar)
-1/4 cup water
-1 cup whole wheat flour
-1 tbs. paprika
-salt & pepper
-other spices optional
-extra whole wheat flour + breadcrumbs for dusting
-vegetable oil for frying
Sauce Ingredients:
-3 tbs. cornstarch
-3 minced cloves of garlic
-1/2 cup pineapple juice (orange juice is good too!)
-1/4 cup raw honey
-1/4 cup coconut sugar
-1/2 tsp. ground ginger
-1/2 tsp. pepper
-1 tbs. soy sauce
-1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
-2-4 tbs water
Directions:
Cut chicken breasts into nuggets size. Fill a shallow pie pan with equal parts flour and breadcrumbs. Coat all nuggets with flour mixture. In a separate bowl mix the buttermilk, water, flour, and spices into a thick batter. Add more water if its too thick. Carefully dip each nugget into the batter, coating it completely, then coat it in the flour mixture again. Heat about a 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a skillet and add the chicken pieces and cook over medium heat until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
To make the sauce, add all ingredients to a saucepan except for the water. Heat over medium, stirring frequently until a thick sauce forms. Add a few tablespoons of water as needed to create your desired consistency. Coat the wings in the sauce or just use it for dipping, whichever you would like. Enjoy!
Yummmm…These would be good with tons of other sauces too. Or even as plain ol chicken nuggets. I love me some fried chicken!