Nuggets!

Pecan chicken nuggets with honey mustard dipping sauce

Sunday night was our "decorate the tree" night, so I thought a snacky dinner we could eat while decorating would be fun.

Where this recipe came from
A few years + ago, I was watching an episode of Emeril where he was making chicken nuggets. Previous to this, it had never occured to me that one could make homemade nuggets. Although I'm not sure why, since they are essentially smaller pieces of breaded chicken. Anyway, this is my version.

Making the recipe
I used to make do a half-package of chicken whenever I made these. Since it's sort of a lot of work to bread all of the tiny pieces, I now do a whole package. I use the thin slice breasts and chunk them up, but you could easily do large breasts or tenderloins (although I hate the white stringy things that come in the tenderloins). Also - leftovers are great to stick in the freezer and pull out to top salads or for quick snacks.

The results
The kids eat these...homemade chicken nuggets!!! That in itself is exciting. On this particular night, the fact that they got to eat these off of paper plates on a chair in the living room was an added bonus!

The recipe
1 package of chicken breasts (Mine was 1.87 lbs), cut into large chunks
1 bag of pecans
1 cup of whole wheat bread crumbs
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Put the pecans, bread crumbs, salt and pepper in a food process and process until smooth. Put in shallow bowl. Mix eggs, olive oil, salt and pepper in another shallow bowl.

Dredge chicken in egg mixture and then bread crumbs. Put on baking sheet spreayed with cooking spray. Bake for 20 minutes, turning halfway.

Honey mustard dipping sauce
1/2 cup mayo
3 tbsp mustard (I usually use grey pupon dijon, but this time used Koop's southwest heat)
2 tbsp honey
pepper

Misx all ingerdients in small bowl and serve with warm chicken.