The Best Homemade Chicken Nuggets

America's test Kitchen you've done it again!!!  I have been trying to cut down on our yucky pressed mystery meat consumption, so I was so happy to be watching cooks country when this recipe was being shown.  These are truly the best!  The breading stays on, the coating is crisp and delicious, even after freezing and reheating.  These are AWESOME!  I usually multiply the batch and freeze the extras, both so that I can make good use of my frying oil since I don't save it, and to have more for future meals.  I think it's easier to cook less often in bulk than to have to cook over and over.  But I must say that this one it is a tiring endeavor.  I don't do it that often since it takes hours of work.  But it feels good to feed them something that at least has ingredients I recognize, though I wouldn't claim they are healthy every day fare.  The flavor is worth the extra effort too.

1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts (4 breasts appx)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 cup flour
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 teaspoons onion powder
3/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 teaspooon (at least) tony chacherie's...I know, I add it to everything!
3 large egg whites
4 cups peanut or vegetable oil

They said to use crushed panko crumbs.  I thought they were crushed enough, and the crunch it created made me think of mimi's chicken fingers which is always a good thing!  So I just measure them as is...  I bought kikkoman panko bread crumbs from winco, and they were only just over a dollar a box.  I share this because they were considerably more at a couple of other grocery stores.  You might want to have extra breading ingredients, or don't get too carried away breading them.  Usually the recipe amt is enough, but one time, when I made a MONSTER sized batch, I used WAY too much.  I had extra crumbs, so I mixed up extra breading mix, and still ran out.  Some of my nuggets ended up less breaded, but they were still good. 

They have a method for cutting the chicken in uniform sized pieces, look up the recipe for better instructions.  Mine weren't very uniform, but I tried!  You cut the breast into thirds the long way.  Then the thickest top portion of the breast is cut in 1/2 inch slices.  The rest I just tried to cut about that same size...  Maybe someday I'll actually take photos, but I wouldn't count on that in the near future :).  After you cut them, you have to brine them.  Whisk water, 1 tbsp salt, and worcestershire in a bowl large enough to hold your chicken.  Dump in the chicken pieces and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.  They say not to do it any longer than that, but I have left it a little longer while I'm cooking earlier batches.  Next time I'll dump off the brine after the 30 min, so the chicken isn't so hard to pat dry.

Now you are ready to bread them!  Whisk your egg whites till a little foamy in one bowl, just to break them up.  Then mix all of the dry ingredients in a large shallow pan.  I use an 11 by 15 deep baking dish.  Pat your chicken dry with paper towels, dip them in your egg whites and then coat them well with your bread crumbs pressing the crumbs into the nuggets.  They say to press gently, but I actually press hard on the chicken, both to press in the crumbs, and to flatten them a little.  That might be how I used too many crumbs.  Then place them on a plate for ten minutes.  You're not done there!!!  Keep your bread crumbs for a second layer.  Meanwhile, heat your oil to 350.  After ten minutes dip them again, pressing the crumbs gently onto your nuggets again.  And they are ready to fry.  They say to fry 1/2 the batch at a time, for 3 minutes till golden brown, turning half way.  Then place it on a wire cooling rack, placed on a rimmed cookie sheet in a 200 degree oven while you cook the other half of the nuggets.  If you want to freeze them for later.  Wait till they are cool, and place them in a ziplock bag.  They say you can freeze them up to a month.  But ours don't last that long ;).  To reheat, bake at 350 for about 15 minutes till heated through.

So when I make a lot, this is how my assembly line works.  I dip 20 nuggets at a time.  First in the egg wash and then the first bread crumb dip.  Then I set my timer for 10 minutes.  I use two plates, one for the first dip and one for after the second one, so I can easily keep track.  After things get going, it works pretty good, but I am busy the whole time.  While I wait for 10 minutes for one batch, I am frying the one before.  I fry the nuggets 10 at a time for about 4 minutes.  After ten minutes pass, I quickly did the second dip in time to put them in the oil after the batch before was done.  Then in open moments I had to dip the next set of 20 for the first time.  I don't know if this is a good explanation, but once you start doing it, you can kind of see how it works.  I had my whole table set up starting with a spot on the far right with a plate covered in paper towels for the raw chicken.  You can keep your chicken in the fridge and just pull out 20 at a time to place on the paper towels.  Then I threw away the towels and put new ones for each batch.  To the left of that plate was my egg whites and to the left of that was my bread mixture.  I placed the plate for after the first dip above my pan, and the nuggets ready for frying to the left of the pan.  Then next in line was my plug in fry daddy pan and next to that was my cooling rack.  I left them on the cooling rack just long enough to cook the next batch and then moved them into the oven into a big pan I kept in there.  The frying part actually went pretty fast, but I had to MAKE SURE that I had no usual interruptions from my children :).  They were strictly confined to the basement with daddy ;).  A lot of the time is in cutting up the chicken and brining, and then setting it all up.  And then the frying part was very tiring because I was running here and there the whole time multitasking and I had to wash my hands a million times every time I would handle different batches of chicken.  I hope I didn't make it sound so complicated that you won't want to try it.  I promise it is worth it!  And if you don't want the big song and dance, just make a small batch. :)  Or get together with friends so each person can handle one station.  That's what I should have done!  I can't wait till my kids are older hehehehe.  Please feel free to ask questions if some of this doesn't make sense.