Gluten-Free Breading

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Breaded Pork Chop

First coat with flour

I get so many requests asking about brands of chicken nuggets, how to make nuggets or strips, and many other questions related to breading. I have posted a couple of nugget recipes and they really are not hard to make. It seems to be the one food that celiac children and teens miss the most. One mother told me she bought a small package of GF chicken nuggets for her son for $8 and he started to cry when he tasted one. She tried one and said "They really were gross!" Adults miss a good crunch too, because even if you never made breaded foods at home, that is often a treat when you go to a restaurant. I used to love breaded mushrooms and sometimes they have them in the cafeteria at work and they look so good! I know I am showing a picture of a pork chop, but instead of posting another chicken strip recipe I am just going to post a lesson on breading food, and two pork chops is what I had. So here is my easy lesson.


Adding Breading to FoodFirst of all you need three dishes ofingredients on the counter:

1. Rice flour or other flour
2. Egg wash. Mixture of egg and milk or water
3. Crumbs. I keep a jar of breading mix made up of 1 part rice flour, 1 part corn meal and 1 part finely crushed Corn or Rice Chex) You can also use dried bread crumbs if you have them. Use them in place of the cereal part. Any GF, dry product such as potato flakes, quinoa flakes, flax meal, etc could work here.
   

   

   Second Step Egg Wash

To bread the product:

1. Dry the food so you'll get a thin even coat of flour
2. Season the product or season the flour
3. Dip the product in flour to coat
4. Dip in egg wash, let excess drain off. The flour and the egg combine to make sort of a glue to hold the crumbs in place.
5. Dip in crumbs. Cover with crumbs and slightly press in. Shake off excess.
6. This can be done earlier in the day and the product refrigerated until ready to fry.
   

   

   Step three: This breading shown had some bread crumbs in it too. That makes it extra crunchy.

   So now to cook the food you have three options. First you can obviously pan or deep fry in hot oil. The second method is the one I use about half the time and that is to brown the meat in a skillet in a little oil, place on a baking sheet and bake in a hot oven...about 400..until done. That way is a lot less messy. The third option that I mostly use the other half is to just lay the breaded items on a greased baking sheet, spray with a little more oil and bake in a very hot oven...about 400-425... until done. If you add some Parmesan cheese to the breading when you oven bake the food will brown nicely.
   To make ahead chicken nuggets or strips I would suggest you watch for chicken breasts to go on sale and buy a bunch. Follow my breading recipe and brown the chicken pieces, but don't cook them all the way through. Freeze it and whenever you want a few take them out and bake them. If you want to be really frugal like GF Gloria, I buy whole chickens and cut up the white meat. I save the wings, back, thighs and legs to make soup or chicken and noodles. We just bought whole chickens on sale for only 79 cents a pound! The whole huge chickens were only $3.50 each. That could be a lot of nuggets!
   P.S. Use one hand for the egg part and one hand for the flour and breading part and you won't get so sticky! Let me know what else you need. I'm thinking of making some YouTube cooking videos. What do you think?