Home made chicken nuggets too dry, help!!

Hi all,

I have made some delish home made nuggets yesterday, which is basically a cooked chicken breast with one egg, a bit of salt and pepper (very little as it's for my DS) and blended in a food processor, then crumbed with parmesan cheese and corn flakes (crushed). So, I have made them yesterday and they were quite dry as it was chicken breast I think. Next time I will attempt to make them with chicken thighs. However, I have some spare mixture in the fridge to make some more nuggets today for freezing, what can I add to the mixture to make the nuggets less dry?? I was thinking maybe grated zuccini???? Would that work or what else can I add?

TIA :)

I agree about using thigh next time.

Funnily enough it is usually fat content that makes things seem moist not water content. Maybe a touch of olive oil might make them more palatable or some fattier cheese (cheddar, fetta, ricotta?). Or another egg yolk?

Yuuum they sound good!

Maybe another egg as well as the zuchinni.

Now I want chicken nuggets!

ETA - as Onyx said, cheese and/or olive oil I think would work too.

Try coating with mayonnaise instead of egg etc I do this and add a tablespoon of pesto for taste :)

Cream cheese is meant to work well to keep lean meat patties moist, and I imagine that would taste good without adding to the liquid content and making them sloppy like extra egg yolk or olive oil might.

For next time, I think thighs would be better, but you could also try not cooking the chicken breast first - ie, use either minced or small cubes of raw chicken made into fingers. Once-cooked chicken breast can be fine. Twice-cooked is bound to be dry.

I dip ours in youghurt before I crumb them, seems to help - or you could add youghury to the mix

I would say egg too....


We are vego now, but when I used to eat chicken. I cut up chicken to nugget size, rolled them in plain yoghurt and then crumbs.... pop in oven simple as that!

Wow thanks ladies!! You are all awesome :)

Yes, I will definitely use chicken thigh next time, they can mince it for me! In the original recepie, they did say to cut up chicken breast into bite sized cubes, but my DS does not like chicken unless it's minced (and that's even a hit and miss ATM) so I thought since all chicken nuggets are made of minced whatever in the shops, I might process the meat. Pholi, I agree, cooking the chicken twice has probably just dried it out too much :(.

Rouge, do you mean use mayo instead of egg in the recepie next time??

What do you think if I add the bit of mayo and zuchinni then?

I think the zucchini sounds awesome. Yum! I'd go with minced chicken thigh, grated zucchini, egg (whole, or just the yolk), seasoning, and the crumb as you did before. I think egg inside it would help it to bind and keep it moist better than mayo, but maybe mayo makes a good crumb sticking agent? I for crumbing, I usually use plain flour, then a dip in whole beaten egg, then the crumb. It makes for very mucky fingers, but a good, stuck down crumb.

It's all sounding like a chicken meatball recipe to me, and I'd happily serve that up for DP and I (maybe I'll do it for tonight's dinner!), but you can call it nuggets and just give it to DS if you like. ;)

I'd go chook mince, corn kernels, an egg, season and mix. Then coat in panko crumbs and bake on a well oiled tray or shallow fry. I used to adore those chicken and corn schnitzels that were around when I was a kid lol.

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