Today on The Stay At Home Chef I'm showing you how to make Copycat Chick-fil-A Nuggets and sauce. I love making copycat recipes. It's always a fun challenge, and with this one in particular, our family loves Chick-fil-A and I wanted to come up with a true copycat that would be as close to the restaurant as possible.
When it comes to national chains or packaged foods it's very convenient that they have to list out all the ingredients for you. A little food science knowledge will help you figure out what each of the ingredients are, which ones are stabilizers and preservatives that you can leave out, and how to get that best flavor with just a little bit of testing.
Make Copycat Chick-fil-A Nuggets and sauce Recipe
To start i'm going to show you how to make the sauce. The first ingredient listed on the package is soybean oil, and elsewhere it lists eggs and a little bit of vinegar, which tells me that this is a mayo based sauce. You'll want to start with 1/2 cup of mayonnaise. You'll also need 1/4 cup of plain barbecue sauce, and with Chick-fil-A they actually use their regular barbecue sauce that you can get as a dipping. Then you'll need 2 tablespoons of yellow mustard.
Nope Chick-fil-A does not use honey mustard. Then we'll add in 1/4 cup of sugar, and I know that's a lot of sugar. Now some recipes use honey or honey mustard, you can use honey in place of the sugar in the same amount, but I'm sticking to the true copycat recipe.
For spices you'll need 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder, and just a pinch or 1/8 of a teaspoon of chili powder, then you'll need 1 tablespoon each of freshly squeezed lemon juice, distilled white vinegar, and apple cider vinegar. Whisk this all together until smooth and you've got yourself delicious homemade Chick-fil-A sauce.
It's not quite as thick as Chick-fil-A sauce, but it does thicken up a little as it sits in the fridge. You can store this in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. So if we give the Chick-fil-A sauce a little taste, it's a little, it's like gelatinous which I don't always love, but it sure does taste good. And then if we taste our homemade sauce, so good and such a great match.
Next up are nuggies. You'll want to cut about 2 pounds of chicken breasts into 1 inch cubes, or you know nugget sized pieces. Then transfer all these pieces to a medium-sized mixing bowl. Then we're going to pour in a lightly beaten egg plus 2 cups of either milk or buttermilk.
The true recipe would use milk. Then this is a brine so you'll want to add in 2 teaspoons of salt to tenderize that chicken, and last but not least and certainly actually pretty important, 1 teaspoon of M.S.G.. There's a lot of myths when it comes to M.S.G., and a lot of them are actually rooted in racism. This is a natural occurring substance that makes for a great flavor enhancer.
You don't have to use it, but I'm telling you this will give you that Chick-fil-A nugget flavor. Then we'll just give our nuggets a little toss and kind of stir up this milk mixture, then cover the bowl and we'll refrigerate this for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours if you want to prep this and get this in the fridge before dinner time. Next we're gonna put together our dredging mixture. You can do this in a mixing bowl or in a gallon sized resealable plastic bag.
It starts with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, which is just regular sugar that's in a fine powder so this will spread throughout our mixture really well, 2 teaspoons of sweet paprika, not the smoked kind, 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper, 1 teaspoon of that delicious flavor enhancing M.S.G., and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and then we'll just stir this all together until combined.
We'll set the dredging mixture aside, grab a skillet and head on over to the stove for some frying. Pour enough peanut oil into the bottom of your skillet to cover the bottom with about 2 inches of oil. Chick-fil-A actually uses a peanut oil that's supposedly allergen friendly, but if you have a peanut allergy concern you can also use canola or vegetable oil. Then we'll get this oil heating to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Once your oil is heated and ready you'll want to remove the pieces of chicken nuggets and tap off any of the excess liquids, place those pieces into your dredging mixture, working in small batches works great for this.
Make Copycat Chick-fil-A Nuggets and sauce Recipe
Then you just use a fork to toss until those chicken nuggets are coated, then place them onto a wire cooling rack to dry out a little while you do the rest. If you're using a plastic bag you'll still want to work in small batches, just seal it up and shake it, take them out and then refill. Check your nuggets real quick make sure none of them need any more coating, and then we'll head over to the stove. Working in small batches again add your nuggets to the hot oil and let them cook until they reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. How many nuggets you can fry at a time depends on the size of your skillet, you just want to make sure to not crowd the pan.
It takes about 4-5 minutes to fry these nuggets. Make sure you move them around and turn them to make sure that all sides get fried. The temperature of your oil drops when you add in your nuggets. You'll want to keep an eye on it. You'll probably have to increase the heat on the stove to get it closer to 325 - 350 degrees. Once they're a deep golden brown and cooked through to the center, remove them from the oil and transfer them to a paper towel lined plate or rack to drain. Then just keep frying in small batches until you've cooked them all up. Give them a good 2 or 3 minutes to cool off a little bit, and then you are ready to eat.
All we need is some waffle cut fries. Mmmm! So good! Thanks for Reading.
