As summer draws to a close and we head toward Labor Day weekend we thought we would provide you with a great “fried” chicken recipe that doesn’t include any frying! This one uses low-fat buttermilk and ground fat-free croutons for breading. It’s a winner for sure and great to bring to any pool party you may have coming up.

One beautiful summer day a couple of years ago we decided we wanted to go to the park and have a picnic lunch. We didn’t have a lot of lunchy type food in the house and decided we would pick up a bucket of chicken to make it easy. As soon as we pulled the chicken out of the bucket it was clear the grease and fat were at epic proportions. We ate it and felt terrible after we ate it. So we started to look for ways to make fried chicken in a healthier way. The recipe below is what we came up with and truly, it rocks. We swapped the frying for baking and used our ground up fat-free croutons to make it crunchy.

Ingredients

1 pint Reduced fat buttermilk

1 tsp Garlic salt

1 tsp Paprika

1 tsp ground sage

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp pepper

4 Chicken thighs with bone in

4 Chicken drumsticks

1 cup Ground fat-free croutons

¼ cup Corn meal

Olive oil spray (optional)

How to make them!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Place chicken thighs and drumsticks in a plastic bag with the buttermilk and spices (ideally we do this the day before and marinate the chicken over night). Remove the chicken from the bag and place in another bag with ground croutons and corn meal. Coat the chicken completely with the breading mixture and place on a baking sheet.

Kevin’s tip: “I use olive oil spray and spray the chicken before putting it in the oven. This doesn’t add a lot of fat and helps brown the chicken better.”

Bake for 45-55 minutes until golden brown. Serve with your favorite sides. We like to pick it up and eat it with our fingers, so make sure you serve it with plenty of napkins! This chicken is also good cold the next day.

Yields 8 servings.

Serving Size: 1 drumstick or chicken thigh.

Fat 8g | Calories 332 | Carbs 29g | Protein 31g | Fiber 2g