Boneless chicken breasts are very healthy to eat. There are several methods of cooking them and a wide range of recipes to accommodate most people’s taste buds. However, one of the healthiest ways of cooking boneless chicken breasts is to bake them.
Breaded chicken cutlets
One delicious way to utilize boneless chicken breasts is to make breaded chicken cutlets. Breaded chicken cutlets can be served with just about any type of side dish. Here’s how to make the cutlets:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- Pound the breasts flat with a mallet or the edge of a saucer until they are flat.
- Lightly beat a raw egg in a dish large enough to dredge the chicken pieces. If desired, you can add a little bit of milk to the mixture, as well as any seasonings, such as garlic powder, onion powder, salt, or pepper. Season according to your own personal preferences.
- Dredge each chicken breast in the beaten egg.
- Coat each piece with bread crumbs. Tip: the easiest way to coat the pieces is to place the bread crumbs in a Zip-lock styled plastic bag and then just shake each piece of meat around in the sealed bag until it’s well coated.
- Place the coated chicken breasts on a greased baking pan and drizzle some oil over the chicken. The oil will help keep the chicken from becoming too dry during the baking process. Being boneless and white meat, the chicken breasts will not produce much juice of their own accord.
- Bake uncovered for approximately a half an hour.
If desired, the breaded chicken cutlets can be made without baking them. Follow the aforementioned steps, but leave out the steps for baking. Instead, heat several tablespoons of vegetable oil in a frying pan. Use tongs to set the coated chicken pieces into the pan and fry the first side for eight minutes. Turn the chicken over and fry the second side for five minutes. Since stoves and ovens vary in temperatures, you may need to adjust the cooking time according to your own appliance’s temperatures.
Any leftover chicken cutlets can be used for making sweet and sour chicken. Simply make a sweet sauce by mixing ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, and garlic powder. Experiment with the ingredients until the desired taste has been achieved. Then pour the sauce over the chicken, cover the pan and reheat the chicken for 10 minutes.
Variations
A variation of this recipe is to only dip one side of each piece in bread crumbs. Then put a thin slice of pastrami on the un-breaded side and roll up the chicken breast until it’s closed. If needed, use wooden toothpicks to hold it closed. Pour enough duck sauce into a baking pan to cover the bottom of the pan. Place each rolled chicken piece into the pan and then pour more duck sauce over the chicken. Bake uncovered for one hour.
Tips
To make the dish healthier, trim any excess fat off the meat before using it in any recipe. However, the real secret to baking boneless chicken breast is mainly to keep them moist while they’re cooking. This can be done simply by keeping the pan covered and a little water or liquid sauce in the bottom of the pan. The steam from the liquid on the bottom of the pan should be enough to keep the chicken breasts from drying out too much. To make the chicken taste better, pour the sauce over the pieces.
Other methods
Several other methods can also be used to cook boneless chicken breasts. They can be diced into cubes and then used to make stir fry dishes. However, it’s important to remember to stir fry the chicken until it’s mostly done cooking before adding in the other ingredients. Otherwise, the vegetables may turn out to be overcooked while the chicken may be under-cooked.
The chicken breasts are also great for preparing crock pot dishes, such as chicken vegetable stew. Just be sure to add enough water or liquids to completely cover the chunks of chicken and other ingredients or else the chicken will be too dry. It may also be undercooked if not enough liquids are added. Boneless chicken breasts are also delicious when they’re seasoned with spices and then fried in oil. For instance, coating them in paprika, garlic powder and cumin can give the chicken breasts a Middle Eastern flavor, especially if dipped in hummus.
Safety tips
Although poultry dishes are generally considered to be healthy, some precautions have to be taken when preparing them. Here are some of the necessary precautions:
- Wash hands and cooking surfaces with soap and water or disinfectant before and after handling raw chicken to prevent salmonella infections.
- Do no leave thawed out raw chicken in the refrigerator for more than one day before cooking it.
- Never re-freeze thawed out chicken- once it has been defrosted it must be cooked.
- Cooked chicken should be eaten within three days, unless it’s been stored in the freezer.
- Use extreme caution when adding chicken into a pan or deep-fryer filled with hot oil.
Regardless of how you cook the meat, the aforementioned precautions should always be taken. It may be tempting to forego some of these, especially when you’re in a hurry. However, it’s better to take a few extra minutes to practice safety than it is to spend hours being sick from salmonella poisoning. Baking boneless chicken breasts is a fairly simple task as long as you follow safety procedures and remember the secret of keeping them moist.
