Are you in need of easy party appetizer ideas for the busy fall and holiday season? This crispy and sticky garlic chicken recipe is just what you’re looking for!
Who loves a good appetizer?! I most definitely do. Here, I’m breading nuggets of chicken breast to fry in a skillet. Then I’m covering them in a sweet Asian inspired glaze with garlic, honey and soy sauce – so, so good!
Also, just as an aside… I say appetizer, but really? They work just as well for dinner over rice!
Tips and tricks
make sure to bread the chicken exactly as outlined in the recipe below – this is the BEST way for a crispy coating that actually sticks.
if you’d rather bake the chicken, feel free to follow the steps in my baked chicken nuggets (click here for the recipe). Then, coat the baked nuggets in the sauce from this recipe!
if you’re put off by fish sauce, just skip it! You can also use a little bit of Worcestershire sauce in its place, if you want.
Serving suggestions
If you serve these as a party appetizer, you don’t need much with them! Sprinkle them with chopped cilantro or chopped green onion if you like.
For dinner, we enjoy these with a big salad and rice. Click here for my Coleslaw recipe, or here for my cucumber salad.
More appetizers
Sticky BBQ Slow Cooker Meatballs
Crockpot BBQ Little Smokies
Baked Honey Wings
Bacon Wrapped Dates with Pecans and Goat Cheese
PSIf you try this recipe, please leavea review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along onPinterest,FacebookorInstagram.
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Crispy Garlic Chicken
Crispy chicken is tossed with a sticky and garlicky sauce to make a better-than-take-out dinner!
1poundboneless skinless chicken breasts cut into chunks
½cupflour
3eggs
½cupbreadcrumbs
Oil for frying
Instructions
To Make the Sauce
Add all sauce ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until starting to thicken. Set aside until all the chicken is done.
To Make the Chicken
Pat the chicken dry. To a shallow dish add the flour. Whisk the eggs together in a second dish and put the breadcrumbs into a third. To bread the chicken coat it first with flour, then with eggs and finally with breadcrumbs. (For a more thorough tutorial on how to correctly bread chicken to give it a nice crispy coating check out this post.
Heat a nonstick frying pan over medium high heat. Add oil and cook the chicken in batches for 6-8 minutes or until golden and crispy on the outside and cooked through on the inside.
To Assemble
Add all the cooked chicken into the pan and pour the sauce over it. Toss until everything is coated and the sauce has thickened to a syrupy consistency.
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About Nora When I got married to my professional chef husband, I realized I had to step up my game in the kitchen. Now I share my favorite foolproof family recipes here on Savory Nothings: Chef-approved, kid-vetted and easy enough for everyday home cooks like you and me! Learn more.
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Comments
KRHsays
Thanks for the great recipe! I have been looking for a good crispy garlic chicken and I think this is the one I’ll be using for a while. I did make the chicken a little differently (baked instead of fried) but it turned out wonderful and the sauce was great!
My not-so-secret tip to the best fried chicken is a combination of FLOUR, CORNSTARCH, and BAKING POWDER. When mixed with the flour, the cornstarch makes the flour coating crispier and gives it that golden brown color!
That trick is a sprinkling of baking powder, and it'll get you the crispiest, crackliest bites of fatty, salty skin imaginable, whether you're cooking just one thigh, a plate of wings, or an entire bird. Baking powder, it turns out, is good for quite a lot more than baking.
You can also get a nice crust on chicken by starting it out in the oven: follow your recipe, or heat the oven to between 400° to 450°F, place a rack in the top third (the hottest part) of the oven, and slide a pan of chicken pieces in, skin side up. The skin will be crisp by the time the chicken is cooked through.
Drain chicken on paper towels and repeat, adding more oil as necessary, to fry remaining chicken. Transfer chicken to a baking sheet. Finish chicken breasts in the preheated oven until chicken is no longer pink in the center and the juices run clear, 8 to 10 minutes.
The baking powder raises the pH of the surface, allowing it to crisp better*), and tossing in plain cornstarch to absorb some surface moisture and create a rougher texture for the batter to adhere to. *See more on the science of baking powder and chicken wings in this article on oven-fried buffalo wings.
It may sounds unappealing, but coating chicken wings in seasoned baking powder is what makes the skin super crispy. You won't taste it in the end results, so long as you use aluminium-free. To be clear, make sure you use baking powder, NOT baking soda, because there is a big difference!
Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of aluminum-free baking powder (and NOT baking soda!). It doesn't seem like much but you're not trying to make a coating for the wings here. You're trying to change their ph level so that they will crisp up better.
Substitute each teaspoon (5 grams) of baking powder in the recipe with 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 grams) vinegar. Summary: Each teaspoon (5 grams) of baking powder can be replaced with a 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda and a 1/2 teaspoon vinegar.
Ideally, pan-fried chicken will come off the heat tender and juicy on the inside, and golden and crispy on the outside -- but the perfect crunchy skin won't happen in just any cooking fat. If you want a tasty flavor, go with butter, but if you want your ideal texture, opt for a cooking oil instead.
Cornstarch added to flour will help absorb moisture on the surface of the chicken and lock it away while frying, thus making the chicken super crispy. It's the secret to many a Southern Maryland skillet fried chicken recipe, which usually consists of only flour cornstarch, salt, pepper and a little cayenne.
Low Temperature: Baking chicken at too low a temperature can result in a lack of crispiness. To achieve crispy chicken skin, bake the chicken at a higher temperature, typically between 375°F to 425°F (190°C to 220°C), depending on the recipe and the size of the chicken pieces.
It is completely up to you and as tempting as it is to flip it when you're using the oven method, it is not necessary.
The outer part of your chicken will cook to brownish in color as it continues to cook through the inside, if you flip it over sometimes both sides will become dry.
The chicken is then air-dried for 10 to 12 hours before being flash-fried, then oil-poached. The skin gets its signature crispiness from 10 to 12 minutes of basting with scalding hot oil right before serving.
It may sounds unappealing, but coating chicken wings in seasoned baking powder is what makes the skin super crispy. You won't taste it in the end results, so long as you use aluminium-free. To be clear, make sure you use baking powder, NOT baking soda, because there is a big difference!
Pat the chicken dry: Before cooking, make sure to pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towels. Moisture on the surface of the chicken can hinder the crisping process. Use high heat: Whether you're baking or pan-frying, using high heat helps to crisp up the chicken skin quickly.
Introduction: My name is Merrill Bechtelar CPA, I am a clean, agreeable, glorious, magnificent, witty, enchanting, comfortable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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