Chicken that makes me happy!

We live in rural Colorado, so we do most of our cooking at home. We enjoy the quiet of a small town and all that it has to offer. What it doesn’t have is any fast food or even a grocery store for that matter. We live 30 minutes from the closest fast food. However, we still get that craving for Chick-Fil-A…. our problem is the closest one is THREE hours away! Cue the dramatic violin music!

On our latest road trip during Christmas we had a family vote that Chick-fil-a was our favorite on the go food while traveling. We love the real chicken bites accompanied by the awesome and addictive Chick-fil-a sauce. When they ask how many sauces we would like, I then ask how many we are allowed! HA HA! When we got home from vacation the urge for yummy chicken was still there but we are not going to travel three hours every time. I have been working on making our time between road trips easier with a little homemade Chick-fil-a chicken and chick-fil-a sauce. Is it the real thing?…. no. They are obviously the best at their chicken delicacy but this is what I have discovered works for our family and it has minimal ingredients to buy.

Only 4 Ingredients For Dinner

CHICKEN– For our family of four we usually do 1 chicken breast per person. If you prefer chicken tenders or thighs you can use those too.

CHICKEN SEASONING– There are a ton of chicken seasonings out there to try and I haven’t tried them all. This however, is my favorite one to date. It has a little spice to it but the flavor is great.

HONEY MUSTARD DRESSING– This will be used in making your homemade Chick-fil-a sauce. I use the big squeeze bottle for my family because the smaller bottles don’t have a spill proof lid and thier plates were swimming in sauce. The squeeze spout keeps the “awesome sauce” in the bottle!

LIQUID SMOKE– You won’t need a huge bottle of this, as a little goes a long ways. I can usually get about 3 sauce recipes out of one little bottle of smoke.

Dinner Prep

For the chicken: I start by chopping my chicken into bite size pieces roughly an 3/4″ in size. You can make them any size that you want really. If it makes it easier for your family to have chicken tender size pieces then do what works for you.

Then I put my chicken breading in a quart or gallon size bag, depending on the number of breasts I am cooking. I can always add more breading if I need it. I bread small batches of chicken at a time. If you add too many they will stick together and not get evenly coated.

I fry my chicken in either avocado or vegetable oil. Use a smaller frying pan and put about a 1/2” of oil in the bottom. I start the burner on medium heat. If you cook it too hot too fast your chicken won’t get done in the middle and your breading will burn.

I then cook my small batches of chicken, sampling often, until all the chicken is cooked.

For the sauce: This is the easiest step, I open the jar of honey mustard dressing and put about 1 to 2 TBSP of liquid smoke directly in the bottle. We like ours smoky so we use more. Then put the lid back on and shake, shake, shake. It takes a while for it all to mix. I then squirt a little of the sauce out and make sure its flavored enough. Adjust to your liking and enjoy.

Dinner Is Served

We usually serve this dinner with a side of potatoes. You can either cut and fry your own or they have several good frozen options at your local grocery store. You can make this meal your own by adding any side that you all enjoy. My family loves homemade Chick-fil-a night at home but we are counting down the weeks until we can enjoy the real thing again soon!