These healthy, gluten and grain free homemade chicken nuggets are crispy, quick and easy. They are also egg free, dairy free and have an option for nut free as well.
Chicken nuggets, what is it about these little morsels of delight that kids just love. My kids have never had nuggets of the processed type, so it’s definitely something to do with crispy, bite sized pieces of chicken.
Nut free
You can make these nuggets nut free by swapping the almond meal or almond flour for sunflower seed flour. You can buy pre made sunflower seed flour, or you can very easily make your own by grinding raw sunflower seeds into a flour in your food processor or blender. I’ve tried making these with other grain flours such as rice flour or tapioca, and they are just not the same without that courser texture of the almond or sunflower meal.
Do you Really not need eggs?
Nope, you really don’t need eggs to make the coating stick. We no longer have to avoid eggs, but this is how I make our nuggets every time. I recon they come out the best texture and crunch using this recipe. And a bonus in that they are so, so easy to throw together without having to faff around with an egg coating.
These are best served with homemade aioli or mayonnaise, which I have the perfect egg free mayo recipe here.
Oils
Ok lets talk oils for frying in. We personally avoid highly processed oils such as canola oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil, soya oil and ‘vegetable oil’. I fry these nuggets in my deep fryer which we fill with beef tallow or lard (just like the fish n chip shops back in the old days!) You could also use coconut oil. Olive oil isn’t the oil for frying in this recipe, as it doesn’t have a high smoke point, so you will end up smokin out your kitchen when it gets hot enough for frying.
If you try these don’t forget to tag me on Facebook or Instagram
Gluten Free Crispy Chicken Nuggets
Equipment
- optional – Deep Fryer
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon white pepper
- ½ cup almond meal (or ground sunflower seeds / sunflower meal)
- 500 g chicken diced into small cubes / nuggets of your desired size
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- Oil for shallow frying, or deep frying.
Instructions
- Combine all the spices, salt and almond meal in a bowl.
- Dice the chicken into nuggets of your preferred size.
- Coat the chicken in the tablespoon of olive oil.
- Add the chicken to the bowl of spices and toss to coat. Leave them to sit for 5 minutes to soak up the spice mix.
- If shallow frying, add oil to your pan 1-2cm deep and gently heat over medium heat. If deep frying heat enough oil to be able to fully drop the nuggets in, or use a deep fryer.
- Fry the nuggets in small batches for best results, and remove after 3-5 minutes or when golden and cooked through.
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