Fried Chicken Salad

The first time I had fried chicken salad was at a great restaurant in Dallas called Hattie's over in the Bishop Arts area in Oak Cliff.  Wow!  I never really thought about that for a salad but it's pretty good!  Basically it's chicken nugget/tenders that you make up pretty quick and add them to your salad.

I made some Creamy Italian Dressing to go with the salad but you could do Ranch (recipe is with link to Creamy Italian), Honey Mustard (one of my favs and recipe is on link also) or your favorite. There are some really good salad dressing on here you can click on the link to Creamy Italian Dressing or on the side of the blog there is a link for salad dressings.  It takes 5 mintues to make and it's totally worth making it yourself!

If I had planned ahead I would have soaked the chicken in some buttermilk.  I know you are like what?  It really makes the chicken so tender and juicy!  If you are able to marinate it in buttermilk you can omit the egg and milk and just use the buttermilk in place of that.  That buttermilk has away of helping the flour cling to the chicken and it also gives it a beautiful color!

I plan to post regular fried chicken in the next few days.  For that I will soak it in buttermilk over night or for at least 6 hours.  It gives it a beautiful mahoganyny color and it's so juicy and good!

I just add about and inch of oil to the pan.  I had wasting oil and honestly that is all it needs! 

Combine flour, pepper and Lawry's Garlic Salt (with green lid)

dredge chicken pieces in flour

then coat with milk and egg mixture

then coat again in flour mixture

In a skillet heat oil to medium/ high heat then add chicken, if you add chicken to oil before it's hot the chicken will absorb oil and be soggy.

cook until chicken is browned on both sides about 10 to 15 minutes

This is just using 1 chicken breast!  It's amazing how many nuggets you can get from one chicken breast!

Fried Chicken Salad

1 to 2 chicken breast (is enough  for 4 to 6 people)

2 cups flour

¼ tsp Lawry’s Garlic Salt with green lid 

¼ tsp Black Pepper

Vegetable Oil

2 eggs

½ cup milk

In a shallow pan or pie plate combine dry ingredients, in another shallow pan combine milk and eggs and whisk together.

Cut Chicken into nuggets size pieces.  Dredge chicken pieces into the flour then to the egg mixture and back to the flour mixture. 

Heat oil in medium size skillet, once oil is hot enough start dropping chicken into skillet.  Cook on medium to high heat more medium but you want the oil hot enough so that when you place it in the skillet you can see it bubble around it but you don’t want it too hot that it burns it. 

Cook 10 to 15 minutes then place on a plate with a paper towel so it can absorb some of the excess oil.

Make your salad however you want it!  I generally use green leaf lettuce and maybe one more like ice berg or red leaf.  Then I add cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion and some freshly grated cheese.