Extra High Protein Baked Hot Chip Popcorn Chicken!
Typically I avoid using dairy in my recipes- but this was an idea that was too good to pass up. I have made so many different variations of breaded chicken over the years- using everything from panko, to chex cereal to cornfakes and even potato chips. I wanted to create a popcorn chicken extra high in protein..and what better way to do it the adding a few bags of quest chips to my breading.
Quest chips are popular and for good reason..one bag has a whopping 19 grams of protein! But..they are spendy so I wanted to limit how many bags that I called for by mixing them with some gluten free panko.
This recipe calls for 3 small bags (I wanted all the hot chip flavor I could get!)
( I am also posting tenders that use just 2 bags! )
Because I used 3 bags of quest chips they alone added an extra 57 grams of protein to the recipe. Plus the 3 eggs which adds another 18 grams. Then an extra 19 grams from the parmesan cheese. This adds up to an extra 94 grams of protein for the recipe as a whole that popcorn chicken doesn’t typically have!
1 Chicken tender has 19 grams of protein. If you use 9 as I called for you’ll have a total of 152 grams of protein from the chicken + 94 grams of protein from the breading which = 246 grams of protein in the full recipe.
Giving you a grand total of 30.75 grams of protein per chicken tender!
An average serving of meat is about 3-4 ounces. So that could roughly be 2 tenders giving you a solid 60 grams of protein in one meal!
Not bad :)
AND let me tell you this is an awfully fun way to eat your protein!
This popcorn chicken is exploding with big delicious flavor!! Im a little timid about spicy things and I found the spice level tolerable with these once they were baked. The spice level of the breading chills out quite a bit when they are baked.
If you want a truly outrageously spicy end result - swap out the red hot for a hotter hot sauce and feel free to increase the amount of chili oil and cayenne used in the recipe.
If you want to further up the protein in this meal this chicken would taste great dipped in greek yogurt ranch dip. (Mix some greek yogurt with a packet of ranch seasoning!)
Extra High Protein Hot Chip Popcorn Chicken!
Ingredients
- 6-8 Raw Chicken Tenders thawed cut into bite sized pieces
- 3 Bags of Quest Hot and Spicy Flavored Tortilla Chips Finely Crushed
- 1 Cup Gluten Free Panko Breadcrumbs
- 1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
- 1/2 Tsp Salt
- 1/4 Tsp Black Pepper
- 1 Tsp paprika (Sweet Hungarian Paprika is best)
- 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
- 1/8- 1/4 Tsp Cayenne
- 3 Large eggs
- 3 Tbsp Hot Sauce (I use franks hot sauce)
- 1/2-1 Tsp Chili Oil (optional- but recommended if you want your popcorn chicken to have a nice kick!)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
- Chop the chicken into small bite sized pieces. Dry Chicken completely with paper towels.
- Prepare the breading: In one medium bowl whisk together the eggs, hot sauce and chili oil. In another medium bowl mix together the crushed chips, panko, parmesan and spices.
- Bread the chicken: Dip chicken tenders in egg draining off excess. Then toss into the breadcrumbs mix. Place on the baking sheet. Depending on the size of your tenders you should be able to double bread the chicken. (If you are short on breading feel free to add in a bit more panko! The tenders taste best with double breading! (I typically do just a very light egg coating on the second breading- not fully submersing the chicken in the egg/hot sauce mixture.)
- Evenly coat both sides of the popcorn chicken with a spray oil. Bake for 12-13 minutes until the breading is golden brown (any longer and the tenders may dry out).
Notes
If you would prefer to make a larger batch- you may use up to 12 chicken tenders instead with the caveat of only doing one single layer of breading rather than double breading as I did.
