Fried chicken is one of the great American comfort foods, and there is no shortage of advice on how to improve it. There are a number of tips for perfect fried chicken, such as cornstarch helps your chicken breading stick, or you can swap rice flour for regular flour for crispier results. And for the sake of ease at home, you can use all of these tips and tricks on chicken cutlets. You can get the amazing taste and crunch without the full commitment and cleanup of a real-deal deep fried chicken. But how do you make your chicken cutlets even more delicious? For the most flavorful chicken cutlets, swap your regular breading with falafel mix.
Using pre-made falafel mix to bread your chicken cutlets is a super simple hack that will add no extra prep or cook time, and it’ll give you an incredible crunch with layers of flavor. All you have to do is dredge the chicken through the mix at the end of your breading process, rather than regular bread crumbs, panko, or whatever else you may already be using. Falafel mix is designed to be incredibly tasty just as simple falafel balls, so imagine what it will do to your chicken cutlets. The flavors may need a little tweak of salt, pepper, or extra spices, but it should be ready to go, right out of the box.
How to use falafel mix on your breaded chicken cutlets
First of all, just to clarify, chicken cutlets are simply chicken breasts that have been cut in half horizontally, to make them thinner so they’ll cook faster. For this trick, you’ll want to first coat your cutlets in flour, then run them through a beaten egg mix, then thoroughly coat them in falafel mix before sauteing them in olive oil. Depending on just how fried you want your cutlets, you can use enough oil to almost completely cover them, or just a thin layer to fully brown the breading mix. You can also simply dip the raw cutlets in olive oil, dredge them through the falafel mix directly and bake them, if you’d prefer to avoid the hot skillet oil smoke.
The first ingredient in falafel mix is chickpea flour, and it crisps up beautifully on the chicken, giving it a gorgeous, dark golden brown color and a nice savory and slightly acidic base flavor. Falafel mix also usually has baking powder which helps draw moisture to the surface and create a lighter, crispier, more evenly browned crust. From there, the mix has everything you need flavor-wise — salt and pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and assorted dried herbs and spices. The finished product goes perfectly with a little lemon juice or dipped in hummus or tahini. You can even make a mixed greens salad and serve it over the top. Keep a box of falafel mix in the pantry, and you can have a full, delicious, homemade meal in less than half an hour.
