25 Days of Nourishing Traditions: Breaded Chicken Breasts

Sally says this simple comfort food is a great alternative for the deep fried version. She also suggests that the leftovers make great lunches to send the kids off with — or in my case, a Pre-Husband!

Breaded Chicken Breasts is found on page 284-285 of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon.

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Ingredients:

• 8 skinless chicken breasts
• 1 ¹⁄₂ cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 4 eggs beaten
• 2 cups whole grain bread crumbs
• ¹⁄₂ cup grated parmesan cheese
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Sally said to pound the chicken breasts “lightly with the small prong side of a meat hammer.” Well, I didn’t have one, so I just punched it a little with my knuckles! Then I prepared my chicken breading station.

Flour and pepper mixed together on a plate, eggs beaten in a bowl, and bread crumbs mixed with the parmesan in another.

First dip into the flour mixture…

…then the egg…

and finally the crumb mix.

Then it’s time to saute in the butter and olive oil, Sally says about 7 minutes per side. (Oh by the way, I also used some chicken thighs in addition to the breasts, so that’s what those funny-looking ones are.)

 

Sally suggests serving with lacto-fermented Ginger Carrots (NT page 95), pineapple chutney (NT page 106), or simple lemon wedges. Well, PH and I were so hungry and these smelled so good, we just ate them plain!

How’d it go?

I thought this was pretty easy to prepare, except I ran into one hiccup — my chicken was browned enough, but I could still see some pink in the middle. This was probably just because our gas range was just way too powerful at even the lowest setting, so I couldn’t turn the heat down any more. It was an easy fix though — I just popped the frying pan with all the chicken into the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes and that seemed to do the trick.

One thing I thought was interesting about this recipe was that it didn’t include any salt. No salt? Well, I’ll just go right ahead and throw a bunch in with the pepper and the flour!

Uh… Sally knows what she’s doing. My chicken definitely ended up being a little too salty. I think because the parmesan adds enough flavor, and it doesn’t really need the salt.

How we liked it

The chicken ended up being nice and flavorful (and salty, haha!) in spite of the simple list of ingredients, the breading stuck to it nicely, and the meat was really juicy inside. Like giant chicken nuggets!! Just like with the Breaded Whitefish, this is my new favorite way to prepare chicken breasts. (Can you tell I really like breaded and fried food? :))

Be sure to check out the other installments of 25 Days of Nourishing Traditions:

• Onion-Cranberry Compote
• Sweet Potato Puree
• Ginger Carrots
• Stuffed Peppers
• Turkey Stock
• Coconut Turkey Soup
• Carrots Vichy
• Breaded Whitefish
• Moussaka Eggplant Casserole