Fried chicken is one of the tastiest meals that you can make. Many people who like to eat meat would agree that enjoying high-quality fried chicken for dinner can be a real treat.
Some people like ordering fried chicken from local restaurants, but those who enjoy cooking might prefer making homemade fried chicken. One of the most important parts of getting the fried chicken to turn out right involves breading it.
Unless you’re new to the idea of making homemade fried chicken, you probably already know that most people bread chicken using flour. The flour helps to ensure that the coating that you’re making will stick to the chicken.
Without the flour, your fried chicken usually won’t turn out quite right. Many of the best recipes that you’ll find online want you to bread the chicken the traditional way using some type of flour.
What if you don’t happen to have any flour that you can use? Are you going to be forced to go out to the store to get some more flour or is there another option to consider?
Read on to learn about some methods for making fried chicken without having to use flour. You’ll learn about your options so that you can enjoy a tasty meal no matter what.
You Can Coat the Chicken Using Eggs and Breadcrumbs
The most practical way to bread chicken without using flour involves using eggs and breadcrumbs. This idea is going to allow you to fry chicken successfully, but you should understand that it isn’t going to be the same as using flour.
Fried chicken that is made using no flour is going to taste fairly different from fried chicken made using only egg and breadcrumbs. When you use flour to bread the chicken, it’s going to help to make the fried chicken crispy on the outside.
You don’t really get the same crispiness when you use the eggs and breadcrumbs method. That doesn’t mean that using egg and breadcrumbs to get the job done will be bad, though.
So long as you’re aware that things are going to be different than what you might be used to, everything is going to be just fine. Before you get started, you’ll just need to ensure that you have the proper ingredients.
Using boneless and skinless chicken will make the job easier in some ways, but you can use any type of chicken. Some people will prefer using chicken with bones and many enjoy the texture of the chicken skin.
You’ll need three eggs, breadcrumbs, one cup of grated Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and one-half cup of canola oil or olive oil. Which type of oil you’ll want to use just comes down to personal preference.
You can even use other types of oil such as vegetable oil, corn oil, peanut oil, and safflower oil. For this version of fried chicken, it’s just more common to use canola oil or olive oil.
Getting the Chicken Ready
Getting the chicken ready to be fried is pretty simple, but you do want to try to get all of the steps right. Before going any further, take the time to wash the chicken and then dry it off.
You can easily dry the chicken using a standard paper towel. Just gently pat the chicken down with a paper towel and then move on when you’re ready.
Grab your grated Parmesan cheese and place it in a bowl. It’s going to be easiest to use a shallow bowl because you’ll be rolling the chicken in the cheese shortly.
Put the breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl as well. Some people go ahead and mix the breadcrumbs with the grated Parmesan cheese, but either way should be fine.
Season the chicken using salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Once the chicken has been seasoned to your liking, it’s going to be time to dip it into the egg mixture.
Crack open the eggs and then put them in a bowl so that you can dip the chicken. Ensure that the chicken is properly covered in egg before rolling the chicken in the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese.
You do this for each piece of chicken that you’re trying to fry. Once you’ve coated the chicken in breadcrumbs and cheese using this method, it’s going to be time to start frying.
Put the oil that you chose in the pan and fry the chicken as you normally would. You want to keep frying the chicken until it appears to be golden brown.
Once you’re done, you’re going to remove the chicken from the pan and try to get rid of excess fat. You can do this using a paper towel.
If all went as planned, then your chicken should be breaded properly and it’ll look quite nice. Things can go awry during the process if you make a few mistakes, though.
For example, you could wind up having the coating slide off of the chicken. Sometimes the breadcrumbs don’t stick to the chicken quite as well as flour, but you can still get good results.
It might all depend on whether you’re doing a good job coating the chicken in the egg mixture. If you didn’t coat the chicken as good as possible, then some of the breadcrumbs might not have stuck to the chicken properly.
After you try frying chicken using this method a couple more times, it’s going to be simpler to get the best results. You will get a feel for it, and it will eventually become second nature when this is a regular dish that you make for your family.
Another Option Using Cornstarch
The above method of breading chicken using egg and breadcrumbs will be simple, but this isn’t the only way that you can get the job done. You can also choose to use a method that is similar to how Korean chicken is made.
You can make a simple cornstarch coating for your chicken using cornstarch, salt, pepper, and water. Put two parts cornstarch, one part pepper, and one part water into a container.
When this is done, you’re going to add salt to the mix. You’re just adding salt to taste so there is no specific measurement that you need to follow.
This method sees you coating the chicken in the batter that you made and then placing it in hot oil so that it can be fried. It isn’t too different from using eggs and breadcrumbs, but it’ll give you fried chicken that is satisfying in a completely different way.
Some Other Ideas to Consider
You’ll find even more unique methods of making fried chicken without using flour in various recipes online. Some people use corn-based cereals to help coat chicken.
With this method, you’d be able to dip chicken in an egg mixture and then coat it with the cereal. You could use a simple corn-based flake cereal to make fried chicken if you want to.
In some ways, crushing up the cereal flakes will be simpler than creating your own breadcrumbs. If you don’t have any boxed bread crumbs that you can use, then using the cereal might be the fastest option.
There are even people who prefer using pork rinds to coat the fried chicken. This might sound a bit out there at first, but it can actually be really tasty when you do things right.
If you choose to use pork rinds to help coat the fried chicken, then you’ll have to dip the chicken properly in an egg mixture first. Then you can roll the chicken in the crushed pork rind bits until everything is coated properly.
It’s also notable that some people like to use a homemade “shake and bake” method. Essentially, you can put your chicken in a resealable plastic bag along with the coating that you plan to use.
You dip the chicken in the egg mixture first and then you place the chicken pieces in the bag with the coating. Shake the plastic bag to coat the chicken in pork rinds, cereal flakes, or whatever else you’ve decided to utilize.
It can make the process of coating the chicken faster in many ways. You’ll likely still want to gently pat the chicken pieces down before frying them, but it’s good to know that there’s a way to speed things up.
How Long Should You Be Frying the Chicken?
Some people worry about whether they’re frying the chicken properly. You might be thinking that you made a mistake if your coating is falling off and that maybe the frying method is to blame.
Typically, this isn’t the case, and it’s more likely that the way that you coated the chicken caused the problem. However, it is going to be good to know more about how long you should be frying the chicken.
You’re generally going to be frying chicken for at least 14 minutes. This is assuming that you’re frying the chicken using a temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit. To check the temperature, you can use a meat thermometer.
Exactly how long things will take might vary a bit based on the size of the piece of chicken and the type of meat you’re frying. For example, white meat and dark meat fry a little bit differently.
It’s usually easier to just keep an eye on how the chicken looks. Once the fried chicken appears to be golden brown, you’re going to be able to assume that it’s done frying.
If you’re concerned about the texture of the fried chicken, then you should know that dark meat has a better texture when fried at a temperature of at least 175 degrees Fahrenheit. You can keep this in mind when preparing the chicken so that you can get optimal results.
Tips for Getting the Breading to Stay on the Fried Chicken
Even after learning the above information, it’s still possible that you could be having issues with the breading staying on the fried chicken. If your breading just keeps sliding off, then there has to be something that you’re doing that’s making the process go wrong.
It’s hard to say for sure what could be happening in your situation, but you can try to look at some problems that people have had in the past. Learning about known issues might help you to correct mistakes that you’re making so that you can have a better experience with the breading.
When the coating is falling off of the chicken, it’s possible that you’re flipping the chicken too often while frying it. Flipping the chicken many times will mean that there will be more chances for bits of the coating to come off.
To get better results, you should try to only flip the chicken once while frying it. Once you get used to frying chicken, it’ll be easy to get good results without having to flip the chicken too much.
Another common problem that people run into involves putting too much chicken in the pan at once. If you’re making many pieces of fried chicken, then you might want to try to make as much at the same time as you can.
This is actually going to cause you to run into issues because the pieces of chicken will bump into each other. When the chicken pieces collide, it’s going to cause some of the coating to rub off.
This can keep you from getting the perfect fried chicken that you desire. Avoid putting more pieces of chicken in the pan than you can handle at once.
It’d be much better to have to spend more time making the fried chicken than to get less than stellar results. Overcrowding the pan is only going to cause you headaches.
Finally, you should try patting the chicken a bit after coating it in the breadcrumbs. Sometimes it can be good to pat the chicken gently because it’ll cause excess breadcrumbs to gently fall off.
It’s better to do this ahead of the frying process because it’ll make it less likely that the entire coating will come off. Patting the chicken can help you to see if you’ve done a good job of getting the coating to stick as well.
You Can Also Bake the Chicken in the Oven
Some people don’t like frying chicken because they hate how the oil will sometimes splash. While you can certainly get good at avoiding problems like this, it’s also easy enough to just make chicken in the oven.
You can bread the chicken using the methods listed above and then bake it instead of frying it. It’s not going to taste exactly the same as standard fried chicken, but it’s still going to be very good.
To do this, you’re going to need to get a baking sheet and line it with melted butter. Once everything is set, you’ll be able to add your chicken pieces to the baking sheet and place it into the oven.
Usually, the best method for baking coated chicken like this involves baking it for 10 or 12 minutes and then flipping the chicken over. You can check the chicken after 10 minutes and flip it using tongs.
Once the chicken has been flipped, you’ll want to bake it for another 10 or 12 minutes. After all is said and done, you should have chicken that is beautiful to look at and very tasty.
Why Some People Prefer Not Using Flour
There are people out there who actually prefer not to use flour when frying chicken. While flour-based coatings for fried chicken will be tasty, they will also contain many carbs.
With so many people going on low-carb diets in modern times, it makes sense that some of them would want to find ways to lower the carbs in fried chicken. Using some sort of mixture to bread the chicken that is different from flour can allow you to enjoy tasty fried chicken without having to worry about carbs so much.
That being said, you’re never going to perfectly replicate the flavor of fried chicken that uses flour if you’re not using it. You’ll just have to get used to enjoying something different.
Final Thoughts
You’ve gone over many different methods for breading chicken without flour now. It’s possible to get very good results if you don’t have any flour that you can use.
One of the most common options involves using breadcrumbs and eggs to coat the chicken. This is very easy to accomplish and the chicken will be delicious if you do things right.
It’s also possible to use cornstarch to create a coating for your fried chicken. Some people even use ingredients such as corn-based cereal flakes to get the job done.
You can decide which methods appeal to you the most and then figure out which one you’d like to choose. Just be sure to remember the tips about how to get the coating to stay on and everything should go very well.
Enjoy your fried chicken and be sure to share some with friends or family members. You’ll always be able to make scrumptious fried chicken like this in the future now that you know what you’re doing.
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.