Yum: Crispy Honey Chipotle Chicken Tacos

I saw this recipe online…and for all the recipes I find, I always do a bit of tweaking to make them my own, suit my flavor preferences, and just doing it exactly the same as someone else is cheating! 🙂 Changing them is much more fun anyways. This is a really delicious recipe, and the chicken itself would be great just for a meal or an appetizer. This is also a great way to fry chicken breasts without dropping into frying oil. I know this isn’t qualified as ‘health food’ but its better than a deep fryer, that is fo’ sho’. These tacos will appeal to everyone, no matter their taste bud likes. I think you could easily turn this into a salad if you removed the tortilla. Lots of fun ideas for this super crispy, sweet & spicy chicken. Hope you love these as much as we did.

INGREDIENTS:

• Two boneless chicken breasts
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup regular breadcrumbs (no seasoning)
• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs – whisked
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons ketchup
• 1/4 cayenne pepper
• 2 chipotles in adobo sauce – pull two small peppers from can and puree in a food processor
• 1 tbsp siracha or your preference of hot sauce
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 cup water
• 1.5 tbsp corn starch
• 1/2 cup butter melted (unsalted butter)
• non-stick spray
• corn tortillas
• ranch dressing
• avocado slices
• chopped cilantro – about 2 tbsp
• 1 lime cut into 4 wedges
• extra salt & pepper on the side

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees
2. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with non-stick spray
3. Cut each breast into three long strips. Then cut those strips in half. You should end up with about 12 total strips give/take.
4. Sprinkle the chicken strips lightly with salt and pepper.
5. Find three shallow bowls. In #1: combine both bread crumbs. In #2: pour in eggs. In #3 pour in flour, measured salt & black pepper and cayenne pepper
6. Starting with your right hand, pick up a chicken tender and drop into the flour. Turn around to coat well. Drop into the egg bowl but do not touch the eggs w/ your right hand.
7. Now with your left hand, turn the strip around in the egg until coated well. Continuing to use your left hand, remove from the egg and drop into the bread crumb bowl. Using your left hand still, coat the strip in the breadcrumbs pressing down to ensure they stick. Remove from bowl and place on baking sheet.
8. Continue with right hand/left hand process to keep your hands from getting totally sticky with all the ingredients. Keep lining the baking sheet w/ chicken strips leaving space in between them.
9. Once all strips are breaded and on the pan, wash hands and you are now done with the bowls.
10. Take melted butter and pour all around the chicken strips, directly onto the baking sheet.
11. Put in oven and set timer for 10 minutes.
12. In a sauce pot on the stove top, add the following ingredients: honey, ketchup, chipotle puree, garlic, hot sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, onion powder and a pinch of salt and pepper. (A ‘pinch’ is how much you can pick up between your thumb and pointer finger – its about 1/8 teaspoon)
13. Turn heat to medium-high and whisk until ingredients are combined well.
14. In a small bowl whisk together corn starch and water. Set aside for now.
15. When timer goes off, using tongs, flip the chicken onto the other side and set timer for 8 minutes.
16. When sauce is bubbly and thick, add in the starch mixture. Continue whisking as the sauce becomes thick.
17. Add in chicken broth and turn heat to low.
18. When chicken is done, remove pan from oven and turn oven off. Allow chicken to cool for about 5 minutes so the crust sets up.
19. Heat tortillas in cooling oven or in microwave. (I usually wrap in damp cloths in microwave or oven to keep them moist)
20. Using tongs, drop fried chicken strips one by one into the sauce. Moving around until they are covered – about 10 seconds. Pull from sauce and set on a plate.
21. Continue until all chicken strips are ‘dipped’ and on the side plate.
22. Pull tortillas from microwave or oven.
23. Put 2-3 strips on each tortilla (sometimes I doubled up the tortillas if they were too thin)
24. Top with avocado, ranch dressing and cilantro. Squeeze a bit of lime juice onto the top and serve on the side too.
25. Enjoy!

HELPFUL NOTE: You will have sauce leftover, so I put it in a small mason jar to freeze so I can do this again with sauce that is already done! (I’m a smart cookie sometimes).

For more goodies by Angela, check out her blog, Add Avocado!