March Recipe - Baked Honey Garlic Chicken

So the one resolution I'm actually keeping up with is trying a new recipe a month.  I'm a big chicken, fish, and veggie eater.  Every meal I cook is some combination of those items.  When The Boyfriend is over, I add in starch because he likes rice and has the unfair metabolism of a hummingbird making the calories necessary.  I'm working on getting him off of white rice and into quinoa, brown rices, whole grains, etc.  It's a slow process and one I only win when I do the cooking.  He doesn't complain, but he still buys white rice which is pretty indicative of either a strong preference or blind habit.

This month I was searching on Pinterest for something new and something that wouldn't result in a Pinterest fail.  I came across this great recipe for Baked Honey Garlic Chicken.  Best part was aside from the Panko breading and Sriracha sauce I had everything I needed already (I opted out of the parsley.)  The Boyfriend came over and I started cubing up chicken breasts, egg washing, and breading them.  I realized very quickly that I did not have an efficient way for breading and this whole process took me FAR too long to accomplish.

I also didn't get quite the "crunch" factor I was hoping for from the breading but I think I could accomplish that by raising the heat in the oven for the last maybe 3-5 minutes and browning the edges of the breading without drying the chicken.

The chicken did cook really nicely though, I used three good sized chicken breasts here and we had enough for dinner for two plus lunch for two.  Although the sauce portion was not enough for all that, I'd recommend making this with two chicken breasts or doubling the sauce.

Oh the sauce - so easy and so very yummy.  There is something great about sweet, salty, spicy, Asian flavor combinations.  I really do love this sauce.  It reminds me of sweet and spicy fried chicken you can get at every take out Chinese restaurant, but better because it's fresh and only 4 ingredients.  I substituted garlic powder for the cloves, and would probably go with cloves next time but I was so done with cooking by this point that I cut a corner and regretted it.

I paired the chicken with steamed broccoli and some really dark rice that I picked up on a whim on sale.  It was really starchy, almost sticky and neutral in flavor.  A little salt and some fresh ground pepper perked it right up though!  I drizzled the chicken with the sweet/spicy sauce and forgot the sesame seeds but it still looked and tasted great.  The Boyfriend said it was good too, and even took home a lunch box of leftovers (great indicator of if he actually liked it or was eating it to be polite.)

I think this is a keeper of a recipe!

Notes:  Egg wash all the cubes together, this is much faster!  Then toss with bread crumbs vs trying to individually wash and roll each piece - nightmare!  Use fresh garlic in the sauce, and don't forget the sesame seeds :)

Enjoy!!