Fitness Tip of the Day: Sunday Recipe Share -- Oven "Fried" Chicken

This is one of my families' (and mine too) favorite recipes for chicken.  Fried chicken is so unhealthy, yet we love the way it tastes and crunches in our mouth, so we eat it anyway.  Well, I found a recipe for baked "fried" chicken that delivers that taste and crunch without any skin left on the chicken!  It's amazing!  The secret is in placing the chicken on a rack to let the heat get all the way around the chicken as it bakes.

This has become my little bit of this, little bit of that kind of recipe.  Be creative with the spices--use whatever you like--but here is the original recipe I started with:

 Makes: 6-8 servings Total Time: 1 hr 30 min

what you need

• 1/2 cup flour (I use whole wheat, but you can use whatever you prefer--try spelt if you want to make it gluten free)
• dried or fresh basil to taste
• dried or fresh thyme to taste
• dried or fresh crushed rosemary to taste
• pepper to taste
• salt to taste
• 1/4 cup olive oil (I now use less--maybe 1/8 c. or so)
• 1/3 c milk, (since I cut the oil, I add more milk) you can use buttermilk or plain yogurt (I add water if using greek yogurt to thin it down a bit)
• 6-8 cut up chicken pieces, skin removed
• 1-2 cups crushed corn flakes or rice krispies--I add some of the same spices to the crushed cereal for additional flavor

make it

Preheat oven to 375. Coat a baking rack with cooking spray and place it in a jelly roll type cookie sheet pan.

In medium bowl combine flour, herbs, salt and pepper. Add oil and milk, mix well--it will be on the thicker side. Put 1/2 of the crushed corn flakes or rice krispies into shallow pie pan, add spices if desired. Dip chicken pieces into flour mixture first and then coat with cereal, adding more cereal to the pan as needed. Place chicken pieces on rack. Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink and the coating is golden brown.

When in season, I use fresh herbs, but dried work just fine.  I've made it with Lemon Pepper, Cajun Spices, and BBQ or grilling spices, but the Italian spices are still my favorite.

Note--you can put the chicken into the flour/milk mixture and leave it in the fridge to act more like a marinate until you are ready to coat and cook it.

Enjoy!