Homemade Chick-fil-A Nuggets!

Who knew this was so simple to make at home?  I often find myself wondering, "How do they do it?  How do they make their chicken so sweet and yet also savory!?"  - just kidding - my life would be pretty sad if I actually wondered that multiple times throughout the day.  BUT nevertheless, this did turn out yummy.

What you will need:

3 chicken breasts (cut into small chunks)
2 & 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
2 & 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
3 tsp. kosher salt
2 tsp. ground pepper
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. chili powder
small dash of cayenne pepper (maybe 1/2 tsp.)
peanut or canola oil (for frying)

Cut the chicken into small chunks.

Pour buttermilk over and around chicken.  Give it a toss and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Put all the dry ingredients into a large plastic bag with a zip lock.  Close the bag and give it a good shake to mix.

I didn't measure the oil!  (sorry) - but this was one container you would buy at the grocery store - not a huge one - If I had to guess, I'd say it is about 4-5 cups!  Heat the oil to 375 degrees.

After an hour or two, beat up the 2 eggs and add them to the chicken mixture.  Have a clean plate ready.

Use a fork to scoop up about 8-10 chunks of chicken - put them in the flour mixture - close the plastic bag and give them a shake.  Then take chicken out and let them rest on plate before frying.  The tricky part here is that you do everything in batches. 

When the oil is hot, add about 8-10 chicken chunks and cook for 3 minutes. 

Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Back to the tricky part...  you don't want to coat all the chicken and just have it sitting around to be fried.  The flour with get soggy.  So only coat the first 8-10 pieces, then as those are frying, you have 3 minutes to put another 8-10 chicken chunks from the buttermilk to the flour.  The hope is that as you are taking the cooked chicken out of the oil, you are ready to put 8-10 new pieces in to be cooked.  This way you won't burn the oil and there's a nice assembly line happening.

Once all the chicken has drained, I threw mine on a baking sheet to warm it up quickly in the oven (400 degrees for maybe 5 min).

So there it is!  Serve it with whatever you want to dip them in - so so so good.  And since they only chick-fil-a in New York happens to be in an NYU dorm, I don't have the chance to go there anymore!  (Added bonus is not supporting a food chain that gave nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2009!  Yay!)