Food Unfiltered: Pinch of Yum’s Popcorn Chicken Bites

A Pinch of Yum is one of my favorite food blogs. In fact, with over forty-six thousand Facebook followers, it’s safe to say that it is one of many people’s favorite food blogs. I don’t know why they all like it, but I like it because it’s more than just a recipe resource. There’s entertainment value there, not to mention gorgeous photography.

In fact, that’s how I found A Pinch of Yum in the first place–I stumbled upon a beautiful photo on Instagram, followed the link, and tried the recipe: an absolutely lovely five-ingredient sweet potato chili which I highly recommend. So when I came across this recipe yesterday–which featured Kettle cooked potato chips–I tried it. Because come on–chicken coated in potato chips? Yes.

Here were my results:

Pinch of Yum’s Spicy Popcorn Chicken Bites

Ingredient Complexity

Level: Super Simple

If I had not just made a quiche that morning, I would have had all ingredients on hand to make these faux-fried chicken bites. So I trudged out in the dark of night made my husband run to the store for a dozen eggs and got to work.

Difficulty Level

Level: Pretty Basic

This is obviously a bit more difficult than cutting open a bag of pre-made chicken fingers and dumping them on a tray, but only by a small margin. If you’d ever chopped meat or breaded anything, you can do this. I was honestly surprised at how quickly this came together. And the sauce, touted to be ‘done in five minutes’ took maybe a minute and a half.

Substitutions

I didn’t have buffalo blue cheese kettle chips, so I used what I did have–regular kettle chips. I added a bit of chili powder to the mix, and a dash of Sriracha to the sauce to make up for the lack of spice.

Real World Results

My only slight issue in making these was that it was slightly challenging to flip them without disrupting the breading. But as you can see in the header photo, I managed it (for the most part) and they did turn out almost-fried-looking. They are a bit less impressive than the photos on the original site, but still, I wasn’t ashamed of their appearance. Further, they were near fried-tasting! Yes, they were actually crispy. Not fried-crispy, but as close as I’ve ever come to it with a baked chicken dish. And somehow the juiciness of the chicken breast did not cause the crunchy coating to get soggy. And the sauce was amazing; both my husband and myself used the leftovers as a sandwich spread today for lunch. Yum.

Should You Try This Recipe?

Level: Definitely

I only made one single chicken breast-worth, and I regretted it. There were no leftovers.