Sriracha Garlic Oven Fried Chicken

Finally, I have made something worth posting.

This was a mash-up of recipes/ideas.  So Sriracha garlic chicken is its own thing.  I originally made this recipe with chicken wings (which were delicious).  I've made it a number of times with assorted chicken pieces (thighs, breasts, wings, etc.).  It's just plain good.

This time around I had a bunch of cornflakes that needed using.  While browsing Serious Eats, I saw a recipe for oven fried chicken using cornflakes.  Bingo.  Now I used that as inspiration and didn't really follow that recipe (which is why it's not included here).

Okay, first, Sriracha garlic chicken:

5 cloves minced garlic
1/3 cup Sriracha
1/2 cup ketchup
 1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
 3 lbs chicken pieces

1. Mix sauce ingredients in a large, gallon-size Ziplock bag.  Add chicken pieces and mix to coat.  Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

2. To cook chicken, heat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 25-35 minutes or until chicken is done.


Now the oven fried adaptation.  After the chicken has marinaded, crush about 3 cups cornflakes in a pie plate.  Coat chicken pieces in cornflakes and place on broiler pan or rack placed on rimmed baking sheet (be sure to spray the rack/pan with oil spray before placing chicken and then mist the tops of the chicken with oil as well).  I cooked these pieces at 400 degrees for about 30-35 minutes.  Protip: you really only have to coat one side of the chicken (the top).  The bottom never crisped up and I probably wouldn't have noticed if there was only one coated side.

To me, this was best of both worlds.  The original cornflake chicken recipe called for coating in spiced cornmeal, buttermilk, and then cornflakes.  With this recipe, the spicy marinade provided the wet, so all I had to do was dip in cornflakes.  It was so easy I made this on a weeknight.  It seriously took the time for the oven to preheat and then the 30 minutes to bake.  Done.

I ate this with spicy smashed sweet potatoes (just steamed sweet potatoes smashed with a bit of butter and chili powder) and green beans.  Best dinner I've made in a while.