Homemade Shake & Bake Chicken

Anytime we have a traditional or family favourite especially those from the days of being a young bride, I look for ways to improve it while still keeping the favour and feeling of the dish. Our fancy Sunday dinner when I was a young bride was Shake & Bake® chicken, mashed potatoes and niblet corn. I've talked about this before on this blog. This meal is still considered comfort food even though I have made a few changes. Quite often I serve this meal with baked potatoes because the oven is already on so making baked potatoes saves energy. The biggest change made was making my own coating mix for a fraction of the cost of store bought!

The Mix & Storing

Shake & Bake® is a simple, ready to use coating mix that comes with two packets of the mix and 2 plastic bags. When it first came out in the original flavour for chicken it immediately became quite popular. The concept was very simple - pour the mix into one of the bags, add the chicken pieces then shake to coat and bake the coated chicken.

The last time I looked and it has been quite some time ago Shake & Bake® was $2.49 for about 2 cups of mix or $1.25 per cup. The Bulk Barn sells a chicken coating for $1.49 per lb or 37¢ per cup. But if you make your own using homemade bread crumbs the cost per cup is 7¢ per cup. Not only is homemade chicken coating cheaper you can easily adjust the sodium and do a bit of tweaking to get exactly what you what. You are also eliminating any artificial flavourants, colourants and preservatives. The best part is whipping up a batch of this coating mix takes less than 10 minutes on a slow day! This coating mix is every bit as good if not better than store bought!

I use my KitchenAid® stand mixer to mix the ingredients thoroughly (1). This recipe makes 9 cups but for most uses only 1 - 1½ of the coating mix is needed so I vacuum seal in a 1.5 L mason jar (2) using my FoodSaver. This will keep the coating mix fresh until needed. The rest is put into a 1 L (quart) mason jar (3) for immediate use. About 1/3 of this jar was used for dinner but that could have been cut back just a little. I don't measure just pour a bit into a Ziploc® container then add as much chicken that will comfortably fit. Then I shake to coat well and remove the coated chicken to a waiting Silpat® lined baking sheet (4). I repeat this if needed adding a bit more coating mix if necessary.

Homemade Shake & Bake Chicken Coating
source:  Garden Gnome

4 c dry bread crumbs
4 c unbleached flour
2 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp organic cane sugar*
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp dried parsley
3 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp pepper
¼ c vegetable oil

Place all the ingredients except the oil into the bowl of a KitchenAid® stand mixer. Set to setting 1. Stir 1 minute. With the mixer still on setting 1 drizzle the oil into the mixture. Allow to mix well. Pour into jars for storing and vacuum seal.

Yield: 9 cups

*I have not tried this recipe using a sugar substitute but it should work fine although the substitute may not cause the same degree of caramelization.

Chicken Dinner

I use the coating mix just as you would store bought coating mix except I use a re-usable container to coat the coating in place of a disposable plastic bag. Anytime you an eliminate something disposable in the kitchen you save money and you lower your carbon footprint. Once the chicken is coated, I bake at 375ºF for 40 minutes or until juices run clear.
This mix is ideal for chicken (bone in or boneless) or you can use it for chicken fried steak.

Pictured is our updated shake & bake chicken using the homemade coating mix and served with baked potatoes instead of mashed for Wednesday's dinner. Occasionally I still serve this dish with mashed potatoes for old time sake. One thing that hasn't changed is the niblet corn although that is no longer store bought either. My husband gave the meal another thumbs up while enjoying this family favourite from our early married days.