Oven Baked Buttermilk Crispy Chicken

Oven Baked Buttermilk Crispy Chicken

I love Fried Crispy Chicken and I absolutely adore that southern fried crispy chicken which means you actually deep fry the chicken twice! (one isn’t crispy enough lol!).  But with all the cakes and desserts I am surrounded around all the time; eating deep fried chicken is not a luxury I can afford – health wise.

As a parent you wanna make sure your kids learn from example and eating right has been on my list of priority. I let them eat everything as long as it is in proportion. If they spurge on desserts which usually is the family choice then we have to cut back on the rich foods.

So This is the next best thing you will get to Crispy Chicken – my Oven Baked Buttermilk Crispy Chicken. The buttermilk makes the chicken soft and keeps it moist while the egg coating and bread crumbs crust it oven at the same time protect the chicken from drying out.

Let’s talk a little about the ingredients

Buttermilk –

Like I said the buttermilk keeps the chicken moist and soft inside. It’s really is a good meat tenderizer when it comes to chicken. I use it in my schnitzels too! You can make homemade buttermilk in 5 minutes; yes five minutes!! So there should be no reason to skip that ingredients. However if you cannot use buttermilk another good alternative is Almond Coconut Milk. I have tried it with almond coconut milk and it tasted really delicious. The coconut and almond flavor were quite mild with the chicken.

Coating –

One of my favorite coating to use is Cornflakes! I pulse it in the food processor a couple of times and add in some breadcrums. Season it as below.
Another coating I love to use the Panko Japanese breadcrumbs. Some breadcrumbs can become very dense when coating, but these are light and fluffy and stay that way when baked. But again the regular breadcrumbs do work as well.
Substitute – If for some reason you cannot use breadcrumbs then the next option is to roll the chicken piece in seasons for the second time.

Seasoning

I like to add seasoning to my bread crumbs as well as the flour of course. I especially like to chop parsley or cilantro really fine and add them to the bread crumbs.

Here’s what you will need

10 chicken drumsticks.
Salt & Pepper

First Bowl
flour for coating
Salt and pepper to taste.

Second Bowl
2 cups cornflakes or Panko bread crumbs for coating
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp of finely chopped Parsley (optional)

Third Bowl
One Egg (beaten)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp mustard paste
1/4 tsp Paprika powder
3 to 4 drops of Tabasco sauce (optional)
salt, pepper to taste.

Method:

Prepare chicken

• Skin, wash, pat dry the chicken drumsticks. Add salt and pepper.
• Prepare the three bowls with the ingredients mentioned above. and stir to combine.

Coat the chicken.

• First in the flour,
• Followed by the Egg mixture and
• lastly in the bread crumbs or Crushed cornflakes.

• Place oven rack over a baking tray coated light the rack with cooking spray so the chicken won’t stick.
• Place the chicken pieces on the rack. Spray generously with cooking spray.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 200 c / 400 F for about 45 minutes until the outter crust in nice and golden
• you can tell the chicken is cooked when the meat pulls away from the legs.

 Serve

• I wrap a piece of foil at the base of the drumstick so it’s easy for my kids to eat them without the ‘mama my hands!!!”
• Also it’s easier to hold and eat them at a party with the foil.

Recipe Card to Print – Oven Baked Buttermilk Crispy Chicken

An voila here are my Buttermilk Crispy Chicken