Panko Chicken

Golden and crispy panko chicken is just about our favorite thing ever. Right when you think you’re running out of great chicken recipe ideas, you remember the incredible perfection of chicken breast, pounded flat into tender cutlets (just like you would for Chicken Paillard) then dipped in egg and flour and breadcrumbs and quickly pan-fried until you’ve chicken that’s crisp on the outside, juicy-tender on the inside and so easy to love. This panko chicken recipe is up their with our other favorite Chicken Breast Recipes, like Chicken Milanese, Chicken Piccata or simple Lemon Chicken.

Panko Chicken Ingredients

• Chicken breasts. Buy boneless, skinless breasts for this one, you’re going to butterfly and pound them until they’re nice, thin chicken cutlets, so that they can be quickly fried to crispy perfection.

• Panko. These crisp, airy Japanese breadcrumbs will take your breaded chicken cutlets to a whole new level. Made from bread that has no crust, they make the crispest coating for chicken breasts we’ve ever tasted.

• Eggs. This is what makes the panko stick to the chicken cutlets, and sadly there’s no good substitute for the egg here.

• All-purpose flour.

• Vegetable oil. This is for the frying bit. Vegetable oil or any neutral oil is OK here — for once, we don’t want you to use extra virgin olive oil,

• Salt and pepper. Always!

How To Make Panko Chicken

1. Pound the chicken cutlets! Round up the kids or a pal, because this is the fun party. Use a meat mallet or rolling pin to pound each chicken breast to ½ -inch thickness. Phew, that was fun, right?

2. Line up your whisked eggs in one bowl, flour in another bowl and panko in a third bowl or vessel of some kind. Or, instead of bowls, pie pans are kind of nice for this job, too.

3. Dip the pounded chicken breasts into flour, then egg, then panko. That way, the panko will stick to the chicken. This, by the way, is the same way you’d make Japanese tonkatsu and German Schnitzel, but those are typically made with pork cutlets instead of chicken.

4. Time to fry! Without crowding the skillet, fry your breaded panko chicken in the oil until it’s nicely golden brown and crisp. It’ll take about three minutes per side.

Panko Chicken Tips + Serving Suggestions

• To butterfly the chicken breasts into cutlets: Lay the chicken breasts flat on your cutting board, and slip your sharp knife into the middle of the thickest part of the breast. Slice horizontally until you’re almost all the way through the breast, leaving just enough of it connected that you can open the breast like a book. Viola! Now you’ve made little chicken cutlets and you’re ready to pound them until they’re nice and thin.

• Serve crispy panko chicken with almost any side dish you love! This simple chicken dinner goes with basically any side dish you can think of. A Simple Green Salad, Corn on the Cob, Potato Salad, or a Caprese Salad — all would be lovely with panko chicken.

• Leftover panko chicken seems like an unlikely issue to have — it’s crispy breaded chicken that’s been fried and it’s all salty and delicious! — but if you have leftovers, they’ll keep in the fridge for a few days. You could reheat them by quickly frying them in a pan, if you’d like to, or slice them up cold and serve them over a salad.

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