Gluten-Free Chicken Nuggets: Tastier and Healthier

The cast

Our family recently made the Gluten Free move. It was not an easy choice. Part of me wanted to go my whole life without feeling well if it meant that I didn't have to give up pound cake, donuts, hamburger buns, and all of the other wonderful, gluteny things. But part of me wanted to listen to my wife's reason that our kids were having health issues that we could isolate to gluten intolerance. Oh, wonderful gluten, it has been a fun ride, but I must find a way to live without you.

Enter my fabulous wife, who decided that we needed to find a way to continue with some of our favorite family recipes while maintaining the strict gluten free diet. And boy do I love her chicken nuggets. So here is a delicious, easy chicken nugget recipe, made gluten free and entirely from Trader Joe's ingredients (all of which are available from any grocery store, but if you have a Trader Joe's close by, why not go there?).

Ingredients:

- Three large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 4 1/2 cups corn flakes
- plain yogurt (enough to cover chicken, about 1/2 cup
- 1.5 t. garlic powder

The curtain call

- 1.5 t. paprika
- 3/4 t. thyme
- 1/2 t. salt
- grapeseed oil

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2) Cut up the chicken into nugget sized pieces and coat in yogurt (buttermilk may be used, but the thicker the creamy base the better the coating sticks).

3) While the chicken sits in the yogurt, run the cornflakes through a food processor or blender to completely crumble them (note: chewing them to pulverize them makes them soggy, so don't try that. Trust me on this one). Add the other dry ingredients and mix well.

4) Add grapeseed oil to a shallow baking dish to coat the bottom.

5) Plop some of the chicken pieces into the dry mixture and coat well.

The audience's appreciation

6) Put the chicken pieces in the pan to get some oil on the bottom of the pieces and then flip the pieces. The oil on the top and bottom helps to make delicious, crispy nuggets.

7) Bake for 30 minutes, until crispy golden.

8) Ration the amount your kids take or you will not get any.

These are a big hit in our house, so much so that we don't even miss the gluten-heavy mixture that we used in the past. Dare I say it's even better now? Yes, I dare.

So here's to healthier, tastier eating.