Crunchy Coconut Chicken - Healthy, Hungry, and Happy

Last night’s dinner was another one I’ve been looking forward to. I love when I read a recipe and I have all the ingredients already! It’s weirdly exciting. I found this recipe in Cooking Light magazine. I altered it slightly (so I guess I lied, I didn’t have all the ingredients-but I had good subs!). Here’s the original recipe:

Coconut Chicken Fingers:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts- we used 3
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 cup rice flour- no rice flour here, we used wheat flour instead
1 cup whole buttermilk- we used non fat milk
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
3 tbsp canola oil
sweet chili sauce for dipping-optional

We used to buy this sweet chili sauce at Trader Joe’s that was awesome! You can definitely find basically the same thing in any grocery store wherever they keep the asian foods. FYI, it’s also good on eggs.

First up- pouring myself a glass of wine. This step pretty much always guarantees a tasty meal will follow. At least for me, because I’ll be drunk. (A joke I swear).

Back to the meal, first I organized my dipping stations. I poured the flour into one bowl, the egg and milk into another (whisked up), and the coconut in the last bowl.

I poured the canola oil into a pan and let it heat up for a couple minutes. Then I was ready to start the chicken. I dipped the chicken in the flour, then the egg/milk mix, then the coconut.

Next, I started cooking the chicken in the frying pan. It depends on the size of the chicken, but on average I probably cooked each side for ten minutes.

When I tried to flip them, I did have an issue with peeling the crust off. It pretty much all came off to be honest. But it wasn’t too charred so we just topped the chicken with it after cooking. Still tasted good!

While I was preparing the chicken, I had already starting cooking some brown rice. I decided to add some coconut flakes, chopped walnuts, and cilantro to the rice to go along with the tropical theme. I also prepared a spinach salad with avocado and apples.

Finally, dinner was served! I poured some sweet chili sauce on the side and was good to go!

I know the chicken doesn’t look too appealing…but it tasted really good! I will definitely make this again! It was really easy and tasted great! I really liked the rice with it too.