Coconut Chicken with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 large eggs

1/4 c. coconut milk, optional

1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 c. panko bread crumbs

1 c. shredded coconut

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. vegetable oil, divided

1 c. sweet chili sauce

Recipe:

1. Cut off any extra fat globules from your chicken breasts. Cut each breast into 6 strips, diagonally to prevent the end strips from being really short.

2. Prepare your breading station by gathering three bowls. In the first bowl, combine the flour and salt. In the second bowl, combine the eggs and coconut milk. Whisk together until well combined. In the third bowl, stir together the panko bread crumbs and shredded coconut.

3. Place 1/4 c. of vegetable oil in a large heavy duty skillet and heat over medium heat until it is just below smoking. You can test the heat by throwing in a little bit of flour. When it is hot enough, the flour with sizzle and create a lot of bubbles.

4. While the oil is heating, dredge chicken strips. First, coat each strip in the flour and salt mixture. Then dip each into the eggs/coconut milk and finally coat each in panko shredded coconut.

5. Place about 6 strips in the pan at once. There should be only one layer of chicken and about 1-inch distance between each piece. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side of until they are golden brown and crispy. Place them on a plate with paper towel. Continue frying remaining chicken. Oil might become low, in which case, add the second 1/4 c. of oil.

6. Serve with chili dipping sauce.

Rating: 4 of 5

LaDon wanted to rate these higher, like 4.5, but I didn't like them that much. The chicken was good, but in all honesty, I couldn't taste the coconut at all. It was just a crunchy chicken strip (which are good). I was hoping for a much more flavorful chicken considering all the frying that went on. However, with that said, I did serve these up with some honey-mustard and it greatly improved everything (which means that we didn't use the sweet chili sauce). For the sake of crispy chicken strips for LaDon, I would make these again.

Source: Budget Bytes, Coconut Chicken with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce