Gluten Free Fried Chicken Recipe

“I can’t believe I can’t eat gluten, it’s in everything!  I’m from the South, how can I give up fried chicken?!”  The woman behind me in line impatiently tossed her beautifully braided hair impatiently over her shoulder, lamenting her newly discovered dietary issues to a sympathetic friend.  Since the friend had no solution, I had to chime in.

“If you’re interested, I know a way to make gluten free fried chicken that will also save you some money.”

“Girl, if that’s true, I’m gonna hug you!”

Well, I got my hug, and no it wasn’t awkward at all 🙂

We go through about one large bag of tortilla chips a month.  I also use them sometimes when making taco soup for cooking classes or demonstrations.  I always end up with a bunch of chips in the bottom of the bag that are too small for nachos.  Sometimes we’ll sprinkle them on taco salad, but once they go stale they’re not so good for that either.

That’s how I came up with my favorite way to use up leftover tortilla chips.  Fried chicken strips!!!  Even if the chips are stale, by grinding them up in a food processor, and then frying them, you breathe life back into a previously disappointing crunchless chip.  (No food processor, no problem!  Just put them all in one bag and stomp around on them until finely crushed.)

Even better, because the chips I use are just made with corn, oil and salt, they’re a naturally gluten free coating for your chicken.

I like to make chicken strips rather than big pieces of fried chicken.  Using a chicken breast that’s thinly pounded means one breast is enough to feed two people.  Also, the bigger your chicken pieces are, the longer you have to fry them, which means absorbing a lot more oil.  By making chicken strips I only have to fry them a couple minutes on each side, a much healthier option than the big pieces of deep fried chicken.

If you’re not concerned about making this gluten free, you can use flour instead of cornstarch to coat the  chicken before the egg.

One way to make this chicken fun for the whole family is to offer a variety of dipping sauces.  I like mixing ketchup and mustard, Eric likes ranch dressing.  One of our exchange students likes salsa, another likes honey mustard.  This way everyone gets to make their main dish unique to their tastes, and it doesn’t really cost any extra time or money because it’s things I already have in my fridge.

So fried chicken is a great way to use crushed up tortilla chips, what ideas do you have to use food that might otherwise be thrown away?