Not Your Average Popcorn Chicken

For some reason that cannot be explained, I have become the unofficial rice krispies treats maker of my family. I made it once for my nephew’s birthday party years ago, and the requests have not stopped since then.

If you have made these treats before, you’ll know that there’s always leftover cereal in the box. ALWAYS. Throwing it away would be wasteful, so what should I do save the remains?

My options:

1. Grab cereal by the handful and devour it. The mess that I create by doing this is not worth the trouble.
2. Eat it for breakfast along with other cereal. The slight problem is that I don’t usually eat cereal for breakfast.
3. Leave it in the kitchen shelves and pretend that it isn’t there. Sadly, this happens all too often.
4. Use it to bread chicken. WHAT?!

Lately, I have been experimenting with different ingredients to bread and bake vegetables, such as these baked vegetable coconut tempura. Using rice krispies to bread my chicken seemed like a fun idea. And whenever I’m having fun with my food, I tend to produce delicious results.

Rice Krispy Popcorn Chicken

Rice Krispies give this chicken a light crackle.

• Author: Lisa Lin
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 13 minutes
• Total Time: 33 minutes
• Yield: 4 1x
• Category: appetizer, sides

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 to 1-1/4 lb chicken breast, chopped into 1-inch cubes
• 1 1/2 cup rice krispies cereal (or any other type of rice cereal)
• 1 1/2 TBS salt
• 1 1/2 TBS granulated onion
• 1 1/2 TBS dried oregano
• 1 TBS granulated garlic
• 1 TBS cayenne pepper
• 1 TBS sweet paprika
• 1 TBS dried thyme
• olive oil or natural cooking spray

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Grease a baking sheet lightly with olive oil or cooking spray.
2. Crush the cereal slightly by giving it a quick crumble in your hands. There’s no need to crush it into a powder. Empty the cereal onto a large dish.
3. Mix in all the herbs and spices in a small bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of the herbs and spices to the cereal and stir everything together. Save the rest of the spice blend for another dish. Be sure to store it in a sealed container.
4. Place several pieces of chicken at a time onto the cereal mixture, and bread all sides of the chicken pieces. Place the breaded pieces on the baking sheet in a single layer.
5. Bake the chicken for about 12 to 15 minutes.
6. Let the popcorn chicken cool for a few minutes and serve immediately for maximum crisp.

Notes

The herbs and spices blend was adapted from the Cajun Spice Mix recipe on the Food Network.

Q: What are your favorite ways of enjoying rice krispies cereal?