You ever have one of those recipes or dinner ideas that just sits around in your mind for a couple of years before you actually get around to making it? Cap’n Crunch Chicken is one of those dishes for me. I vaguely recalled that one of those “celebrity restaurants” (Planet Hollywood?) used Cap’n Crunch to bread their chicken. But then Lisa mentioned something about it in, oh I dunno… 2003? 2004? Something like that. Well, I just filed the idea away until last week, when we were in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. I decided to pick up some Cap’n Crunch… mostly as a breakfast food, but also to make this dish. I can’t believe I waited that long… this chicken is delicious!
Ingredients:
2 cups of original Cap’n Crunch cereal
1 package of chicken breast tenderloins (or chicken breasts)
2 eggs
milk
1/2 cup flour
salt
pepper
cooking spray
Hardware:
1 baking dish\cookie sheet (if you’re baking the chicken)
2 large Ziploc bags
1 shallow dish
1 food processor
1) Preheat oven to 375F. You may opt to deep fry this dish instead of baking, however directions will be provided for baking only.
2) If using chicken breasts, cut off excess fat and cut the chicken into strips. If using breast tenderloins, trim any excess fat off them.
3) Put Cap’n Crunch into your food processor and process into a fine powder. Lisa has one of those small (1 cup capacity) food processors; I had to process the cereal in two batches, but it worked beautifully and was easier than dragging out the full-size food processor. When done, put cereal powder into one of the Ziploc bags.
4) Crack the eggs and place them in the shallow dish. Add a splash of milk and stir vigorously until the eggs are broken up and combined with milk.
5) Put flour in remaining Ziplock bag, along with a dash each of salt and pepper.
6) OPTIONAL: Line cookie sheet\baking dish with aluminum foil for easy clean up.
7) Spray cookie sheet\baking dish with cooking spray.
8) Place all of the chicken in Ziploc bag with flour. Seal bag and shake vigorously until all pieces are coated.
9) Remove chicken from flour bag one piece at at time. Shake off excess flour and dip into egg mixture, making sure to coat chicken completely. Then move chicken piece to Ziplock bag with Cap’n Crunch, seal the bag, and shake vigorously until chicken is coated with cereal powder. Remove chicken from Ziplock and place on the cookie sheet.
10) Repeat step 9 with remaining pieces of chicken.
11) Let the chicken sit on the cookie sheet at least 5 minutes before placing in oven (this will help the cereal coating “set” on the chicken.
12) Before placing chicken in oven, spray with a light coat of cooking spray (this promotes browning).
13) Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until chicken reaches 160F. For best results, remove chicken from oven and flip pieces over halfway through cooking time.