Globecooking recipe : Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken (USA)

Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken Tenders was one of the recipes from last month's USA-themed Kitchen Trotter box. It's a quick and simple dish that was a huge hit with the whole family and used up lots of odds and ends of condiments from the fridge - win-win !

My version tasted divine but wasn't pretty. Here's the picture from the recipe card and as you can see, it's much easier-on-the-eye. The recipe card said that you could crush the pretzels by hand or with a food processor, so I went for the former, but they were actually really hard so I couldn't manage to get the fine, even breadcrumbs texture from the official picture.

The recipe required one ingredient from the box - a pack of Honey Mustard & Onion Pretzel Pieces. They had a lovely tangy, sweet flavour but you would risk breaking a tooth if you ate the whole pack because they are really hard ! I had a rummage through the fridge and found lots of odds and ends of mild, sweet mustards, as well as some individual packs of honey that came back home with us from the breakfast bar in our hotel in Turkey this summer ! In the picture, I spot Canadian, Norwegian and American mustards, all from different Kitchen Trotter boxes - this is part of the reason that I'm not renewing my subscription, because I have too many spices and condiments to use up from previous boxes. I'll still be checking out the recipes and seeing what I can recreate with what I have though.

 Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken

ingredients :

500g chicken

salt & pepper

a bag of honey-mustard pretzel pieces (or similar - dried breadcrumbs would do)

4tbsp honey

4tbsp mayonnaise

4tbsp mustard (I used American yellow mustard and a bit of honey mustard)

a pinch of Cayenne pepper (optional)

Chop the chicken into chunks. Season with salt and pepper.

Mix together the honey, mayonnaise and mustard (along with the Cayenne pepper, if using) until you have a smooth sauce. Taste and adjust the balance of flavours, adding extra honey or mustard to suit your personal tastes. Pour half of the sauce into the bowl of chicken, stir and pop in the fridge to marinate for an hour (or however long you've got)

Crush the pretzel bites, using a small child and a rolling pin or, for a better consistency, a food processor.

Ideally, you should take a piece of marinated chicken and roll it in the pretzel crumbs until it is evenly coated. I still had fairly large chunks of pretzel so I just emptied the crushed pretzels in the bowl of chicken and stirred it all around with my hands until it was as evenly coated as possible. As you can see, I laid it all out on a baking tray ready to go in the oven at 180° for 25 minutes, as per the recipe. Then I looked at the time, realised I had 5 minutes until everyone arrived home for lunch and decided I need the faster plan B, transferred it all to a frying pan and 10 minutes later, we were ready to eat !

Serve the chicken with rice and salad or coleslaw, and use the remaining marinade as a sauce/dip for the chicken.

Even without the honey mustard pretzels this would be delicious, so I'll definitely be making this again, using crushed regular pretzels, died breadcrumbs or maybe crushed crisps or crispbread.

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up lots of odds and ends of condiments from the fridge.