Crispy Ranch Chicken
Ingredients
2 cups crispy rice cereal (or 1 1/4 cup bread crumbs)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 (1 oz.) envelope ranch salad dressing mix
2 egg whites, beaten
Chicken breasts or thighs, up to 6, skinless and boneless
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a large baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Combine the rice cereal, Parmesan cheese and ranch salad dressing mix in a large bowl.
Place beaten egg whites in a medium bowl. Dip each piece of chicken in the egg whites, then in the cereal mixture. Coat evenly.
Arrange the chicken on the baking sheet. Bake until golden and juices run clear when pierced with a knife. 20-25 minutes for thighs, 35-40 minutes for chicken breasts, depending upon thickness.
Variations
If using bread crumbs insead of crispy rice cereal, use less ranch salad dressing mix.
For a buttery taste, drizzle melted butter on chicken before baking.
Always cut in to the thickest piece to determine readiness.
Notes
I absolutely love this chicken recipe. We make it at least once every other week or so. I always use breasts, with the longer cooking time, but the recipe says thighs, which I've never actually tried it with. Also, according to the recipe, this is an estimate of the nutritional information:
Calories: 331
Fat: 15.4 g (sat fat 5.4g)
Carbs: 12g
The recipe also says that crushed corn flakes can be substituted for the crispy rice cereal, but that sounds a bit iffy to me. I personally like this recipe best with the crispy rice cereal, but it's still pretty good with bread crumbs. We tried it that way the first time because we had no Rice Crispies around :)
