Originally posted to our Facebook Page in December 2013.
Yummo! This is a tweak to my Krispy Fried Chicken I recently posted. They are a little bit more work than the breast or strip version but worth it. These little bite size pieces are delicious! Be careful or you will gobble them all up!
We serve these with salad or in wraps with salad as shown in the pic. They are quite nice cold so a perfect lunchbox addition.
I used one very large chicken breast and it was plenty for one adult and two kiddies. This recipe below is for two chicken breasts which should be enough for a family of four serve with sides.
The coating is enough for three meals. Trust me, you want this coating in your pantry so stick to the full recipe and store the excess in an airtight container. It will last for up to 12 months.Variations:
- Use rice flour in place of flour for a gluten free version.
- If you are unable to have egg, buttermilk is a good substitute.
- These can be cooked in an oven or air fryer if preferred.
- This may be peppery for some so you can reduce the pepper by half.
A spicy coating version can be found here.
Use a food processor, mortar and pestle or just combine for a more textured coating.
Print
Popcorn Chicken
- Total Time: 30
Description
One of our most favourite dinners. Serve in wraps along with salad and sauce of choice.
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 eggs, beaten into a bowl
- 2 large chicken breasts, chopped into bite size pieces
- Oil
Coating
- 2 tablespoon salt, less if preferred
- 1.5 tablespoon black peppercorns or 1 tabs ground black pepper, less if preferred. See note.
- 1.5 tablespoons dried onion flakes
- 1 tablespoon dried garlic
- 1 tablespoon dried rosemary
- 1/2 tablespoon dried basil
- 1/2 tablespoon paprika
- 1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1/2 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
- 350g plain flour
Instructions
- Place all spices and herbs into bowl.
- Blitz on speed 10 for 30 seconds. Scrape down. Repeat. You are wanting a fine grind.
- Add flour and blitz on speed 10 for 20 seconds.
- Have a taste of your flour. You can tweak the quantities used to suit your tastes. Add additional flavour of needed and blitz again on speed 10 for 30 seconds to ensure its well combined. If you feel the flavours are too intense you can add more flour.
- Pour 1/3 of the flour onto a plate.
- Coat chicken pieces in egg and then flour. I then put them in egg and then flour again. This gives it a real crispy coating. Double coating is the key to really krispy chicken but not essential.
- Place oil into pan on a medium heat. You need enough oil to shallow fry your pieces..
- Fry about 10 little pieces at a time. Don’t overload the pan.
- Cook until white and cooked through. The time will vary on the size of your pieces but it was about 3 mins each side. Just watch them.
- Drain on paper towel.
Notes
- Use rice flour in place of flour for a gluten free version.
- If you are unable to have egg, buttermilk is a good substitute.
- These can be cooked in an oven or air fryer if preferred.
- This may be peppery for some so you can reduce the pepper by half.
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 15
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 4
You weren’t joking! These are amazing!! Thanks for the recipe
So glad you liked it!
This was so yummy. My 3 kids loved it and even agreed to take some with lunch the next day which is something I normally struggle with for them.
Just wondering, are the herbs dried herbs or fresh?
Dried. Sorry for the delay in responding.
Made this tonight…amazing!
Is the coating supposed to be quite peppery? Mine is and not sure if kids will eat it as they don’t handle pepper. It the potency of the pepper dulled quite a bit once on chicken and cooked?
Can you freeze the chicken cooked as in the recipe above?
Love these, we have them weekly!
These are DELICIOUS!!! Big hit in my family! Even my extremely fussy 8yr old loves them. Will have to make a double batch and hide half so I can have left overs for sandwiches/wraps etc as my kids seem to go back and finish off whatever I “think” I have left!
Thank you!!!
This is amazing! I’m still cooking it but I know it’ll be a Big hit in our house!
Delicious!!! I have a son with sensory processing disorder who has HUGE issues with food. The only chicken he’d eat was either crumbed store bought nuggets or KFC popcorn chicken. I decided to give these a go not thinking we’d have any luck, but these were a massive hit! He’s never had anything homemade from chicken, but he exclaimed excitedly that this was better than KFC! The rest of the family devoured them too. I’m trying them in the oven tonight to try and make them even healthier. Thanks for the fantastic recipe!
That has just made my night. What a fabulous post to read. Im so glad he likes them. Thats not an easy feat. Enjoy!
O.M.G!! These are amazing! Did a huge batch tonight, using thigh fillets as that’s all I had and I just trimmed off the fat – they were delicious! I baked them with a little olive oil spray and they were crispy and perfectly cooked 🙂 thank you! xx
Made this tonight fantastic recipe even though I forgot to add dried garlic & substituted the tarragon for 1/4 teaspoon ground fennel powder as I had none. Declared better than KFC & my 2 year old DD loved it.
Yum! Thanks Peta! I only added 1 teaspoon white pepper to suit our taste buds, we prefer them only coated once. After first blitz of the herbs I put paper towel under the MC too.
Made these last night. So delicious. The whole family loved it. I didn’t do the double dip coating and pan fried the chicken first then finished cooking it in the oven. Will now try making these for wraps next week as I have a bit of flour mixture left. Thanks for sharing on your blog. Love your recipes!
My kids (and I) love the popcorn chicken, its now on our fortnightly meal plan!
Hi Petra. I have these cooking as we speak just wondering have you ever done in the oven? And what the result was? I’m thinking would need to spray with cooking spray before putting in and also when turning? Any pointers would be great! Can’t wait to taste them.
Lots of people do but I prefer shallow frying. Ensure they have a good coat of oil before baking otherwise it can taste like burnt powder/flour.
Thank you for yet another amazing recipe Peta! My hubby loved it so much. He’s requested I cook this weekly!
This rocks so much better tasting than the “real” stuff. It will be a regular in our house.
Thanks for the Pop corn chicken recipe, we finally tried it and my family loved it. Wasn’t too sure about the amount of spices and didn’t follow it exactly and they were happy with it. Happy to increase the spices next time as it was a hit.
So Yummy! I always do just under 1 tbs of pepper and omit the tarragon because I’ve never been a fan. Delicious by themselves, with wraps, chips or potato & gravy 😉
Made these last night. Didn’t expect my two fussies to eat them, but they couldn’t stop asking for more! My 7yo cuddled me after and said it was the best thing he’s ever tasted, “Better than cake,” which is the standard complement, and “Better than fish and chips from the shops!” His praise can go no higher. They
so much yummier than the real stuff! Really really delicious!
(I omit tarragon and 1/3 pepper to suit my tastes)
The kids love this, apparently it is way better than KFC according to them, they now ask for MFC (Mums fried chicken) much healthier as i cook it in the oven, tastier and probably faster than waiting in the drive through of KFC, the fact that you can make the mix in advance, means an easy meal is always just in a jar in the pantry. Thankyou
Haha! Love the MFC!!!! SO glad you like it!
These are very delicious, and very close in taste to kfc popcorn chicken. I reduced the salt to 1 tbsp, and when I make it again next time I will reduce it further as it was very salty. Hubby, who is the worlds toughest critique, gave these little gems 10/10.
These were voted by all members of the household as awesome! My 9 year old was in charge of dinner and was very chuffed with herself. Thanks.