Cashew Crusted Chicken Strips

I took Higgy out for his morning backyard time and noticed something floating in the pool…

It was a bee hitching a ride across the shallow end. Is it weird that I immediately started thinking of the German honey I had and what I could make that would include using it as an ingredient? Probably should have been more concerned about saving Mr. Bee.

I had purchased two trays of chicken breasts  for the weekend BBQ and didn’t end up cooking everything. I saved 3 breasts to cook another way. I’ve been wanting to incorporate nuts into a coating, but wasn’t really sure what kind. I’ve seen so many recipes for baked “fried” chicken. My SIL brought a can of cashews to the weekend BBQ, so I wanted to use up the last of those. I’ve seen recipes that used pistachios and walnuts, so I looked online and took things from each recipe that I thought would work well together.

Ingredients for Cashew Crusted Chicken Strips w/Honey Mustard Sauce:

For the Chicken Strips:
3 Chicken Breasts (I cut each breast into 4 pieces)
1/2 Cup Cashews (lightly salted)
1/2 Cup Panko Bread Crumbs
1/8 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper – I used an extra dash
1 Large Egg White
1 Heaping Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
2 Tablespoons Loosely Packed Parsley
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Cooking Spray (I used olive oil spray)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Combine the panko, cashews, cayenne, parsley and salt and pepper in a bowl. This photo is missing the parsley. The one with came out too blurry.

I used my chopper instead of breaking out the food processor to chop up the cashews – it worked great! I ended up putting the dry ingredients in a glass pie dish for the coating process.

I used a second dish for the wet ingredients.

I separated the egg and then added the dijon mustard to the egg white and whisked things together.

One at a time, I  dipped the chicken strips into the egg white/dijon mixture, then into the cashew/panko mixture. I pressed firmly and made sure both sides were coated really well.

I got all 12 tenders arranged on the spray coated baking sheet and put them into the oven for 15 minutes. I then gave them a quick turn and put them back in for another 15 minutes. I wasn’t very happy with the color – they didn’t brown up as much as I would have liked. I used a new brand of panko – maybe that was it… who knows. I was very careful to not over bake the chicken – I wanted juicy tenders.

While the chicken was in the oven, I whipped up the “bee” inspired sauce.

Ingredients for Honey Mustard Sauce:
3 Tablespoons Honey
2 Tablespoons Dijon
2 Tablespoons Mayo

I kept tweaking it, so the measurements are close guesses.

The chicken strips tasted delicious! Dan’s comment – they are crunchy! He liked them better with BBQ sauce, but then again… he isn’t a huge honey mustard fan to begin with. I felt like the strips were flavorful enough that you didn’t even need a sauce. I plan on using the leftovers in lunch salads for the week. I will for sure be making these again – next time I might even try a different nut… because I’m crazy like that, hah!

In other news… Today Dan and I celebrate our Wedding Anniversary. It’s so hard to believe that it’s already been 6 years since our beautiful wedding in Maui.

We look so um… thin and young… 😉

The plan is to go out for a nice anniversary dinner. Cheers to my awesome hubby and the best 6 years of my life! Can’t wait to see what the future holds.