Chicken Nuggets

This chicken nugget recipe is my new favorite recipe, it's so yummy, the whole family love them, I always have the ingredients on hand, and they're quick. I worked off of the "Souther Fried Vegetarian Chicken" recipe I found at vegetarian.about.com. I use the chicken patty recipe for the seitan in this, and most other breaded and fried recipes because they're drier than the bulk seitan recipe and coat better. I made the addetion of bread crumbs because I always have them on hand and it really added a nice crunch to the nuggets, but that's completely optional.

Chicken Nuggets

• 1 ts salt or seasoned salt
• 1 ts onion powder
• 1 ts garlic powder
• 1 ts black pepper
• dash cayenne (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup prepared mustard
• 2 TB baking powder
• 1/3 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 lb seitan or other chicken substitute, cut into strips or 1-2" square pieces
• oil for frying

Preparation:

In a medium to large bowl, mix together the salt, onion powder, garlic powder, flour, black pepper, cayenne and nutritional yeast.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mustard and water. Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and combine well.

Add baking powder and bread crumbs to the flour mixture and combine well.

Coat pieces of seitan or mock chicken with the mustard batter, then coat each piece with the dry flour mixture.

Fry chunks of "chicken" in the oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet for 3-5 minutes, turning once until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel, serve with ketchup or barbeque sauce and enjoy!

Tip: If your chunks are turning brown or black rather than a crispy golden brown, your oil is probably too hot! Reduce the heat a small amount and try again.

Despite making larger batches every time I cook these up, there's never any leftover. I would love to freeze some and just be able to toss them in the oven like the carnivores get to do. I would also like to take some leftovers and toss them in buffalo wing sauce and attempt hot wings. If I ever have leftovers, I'll let you know how my experiments turn out.