How To Make Tempura Chicken Nuggets For Perfect Crispy Bites

Tempura chicken nuggets are wafer-thin batter coated chicken nuggets fried to golden brown. They have a crunchy, delicate, and fluffy texture. The outer crispy coating and inner tender chicken make this a great appetizer. 

Kids and teens love chicken nuggets, and what’s better than fluffy chicken nuggets? John loves to cook different dishes from around the world. On our family trip to Japan, he noticed the crunchy chicken tempura being served in every high-profile sushi restaurant. He tried cooking his favorite veggies and seafood in tempura every weekend. After years of experimenting, he made the best tempura chicken nuggets, I swear!

Why Will You Love this Recipe?

• A great Appetizer: Chicken tempura nuggets made in Japanese-inspired tempura style can be served as delicious appetizers. Surprise your kids and teens with these homemade chicken nuggets and see their reactions. 
• Protein Nuggets: Serve your nuggets as a high-protein meal with vegetables and dressing. They require less oil than regular nuggets, making them a slightly healthier choice. 
• Easy: Preparing these nuggets does not require tons of ingredients, and the best part is that there are no fancy ingredients. 
• Fry Your Favorite Veggies in Tempura Batter: Tempera-style frying doesn’t restrict you to chicken, but it allows you to experiment with your favorite veggies, such as potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, and shrimp, in tempura batter. You can also cook squash blossoms in this tempura batter. John cooked the fried zucchini blossoms, and they were awesome. 

What is Tempura?

Tempura is a Japanese style of cooking food in which seafood, chicken, and vegetables are thin battered and deep fried in neutral oil. The thin batter makes the flavor of inner stuffing dominant. It’s not just seafood or vegetables that are chewy due to heavy batter but crunchy and delicious due to airy cold batter. The most common things fried in tempura batter are shrimp, root vegetables, mushrooms, eggplant, and chicken. You can experiment with different vegetables, and they are worth eating.

Ingredients for Tempura Chicken Nuggets

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• Chicken: Take boneless chicken for tempura nuggets. A chicken breast cut against the grain is best for a soft and tender taste.  The chicken breast will be the best, but you can use tenderloins. Only make sure that the chicken is boneless. 
• Soya sauce: 1 tablespoon to marinate the chicken. 
• Salt and pepper: 1 tsp of both is used to season and marinate the chicken. 
• All-purpose flour: Flour is used to make the batter and flour coating. Any soft flour can be used to make the batter. Cake flour and pastry flour are also the best choices for making the light, fluffy batter. 
• Cornstarch: Cornstarch is used to add to batter and flour coating. It helps make nuggets crispier, prevents oil absorption, and helps prevent gluten formation, which is the key secret to making the tempura batter. 
• Paprika powder: John loves adding paprika powder to flour coatings; trust me, it tastes so good. One teaspoon is enough. 
• Garlic powder: One teaspoon is enough to season the batter. If you don’t want to add garlic powder, you can use it fresh. If you skip the garlic powder, then add two cloves of grated garlic to the chicken marination. 
• Baking powder: Baking powder helps the batter rise when cooked and creates an airy, delicate texture. Some recipes use sparkling water to get a lighter texture. The functions of both are the same. Just go with your convenience. If you are using sparkling water, just keep in mind to adjust the quantity of cold water in the batter. Take the cold sparkling water and adjust the cold-water quantity.
• Egg whites: Tempura batter calls for the 2 egg whites to bind the batter.
• Ice cubes: You need ice in the batter to keep it cold and produce crispier, lighter nuggets. Five to six ice cubes are enough for tempura batter.
• Cold water: Cold water is used to make the batter semi-thin. The cold water makes a light-textured batter. ½ cup is enough, but you can make adjustments until the desired consistency is achieved. 
• Oil: Take any neutral oil with a high smoke point. I am taking vegetable oil. You can also take Avocado oil or grapeseed oil. Sushi restaurants mostly use rice bran oil or sesame oil. You can find them at Japanese stores or online. 

Instructions

1.Marinate the Chicken in Seasonings

Place the washed and cleaned boneless chicken in a bowl. Marinate the chicken with dark soy sauce, black pepper, and salt. Set it aside and proceed to the next step. 

2.Prepare the Flour Coating

Combine flour, paprika powder, and cornstarch in a separate flat plate or dish. 

3.Prepare the Tempura Batter

In a separate bowl, mix the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, baking powder, garlic powder, egg whites, and ice cubes. Add cold water and make the semi-thin or wafer-thin batter. Remove the major lumps, but don’t overmix. Don’t worry about small lumps; they will disappear once we fry them.

4.Prepare the Frying Oil

Preheat vegetable oil (or any neutral oil) in a deep pot or pan to 180 degrees. Use a contactless cooking thermometer or check the oil temperature by sprinkling some batter. If the bubbles of batter come to the top without getting burned, the oil is ready for frying.

5.Coat and Fry

Take the chicken piece and coat it in the flour mixture. Then coat it in the batter, throwing off excess batter, and drop it immediately in hot oil. Fry them for 4-5 minutes, flipping in between, until the chicken is cooked from inside and crispy light brown. Coat and fry all the chicken in batches. The batter will puff up when you fry them and create a fluffy texture.

Once cooked, separate the chicken nuggets from the oil and serve with your favorite dishes. 

What to Serve with Tempura Batter Chicken Nuggets

You can serve as a side dish with sushi or sushi rice whenever you crave sushi. Make the teens lunch along with rice.  I love to serve these with homemade French fries, roasted vegetables, or baked sweet potatoes. Ranch dressing, ketchup, or mayonnaise also complement the flavor nicely. I made fried vegetables like eggplant, asparagus, and potato slices with the leftover batter and served with nuggets.  Japanese mostly eat with dipping soy sauce with a pinch of salt. 

Expert Tips

• Oil Temperature is Important! Check the oil temperature using a cooking thermometer. The best temperature is 180 degrees Celsius (365F). Use a cooking thermometer for accuracy. If you don’t have a cooking thermometer, you can test the oil for readiness for frying by dropping some batter in it. The oil is good for frying if the batter rises to the top and is surrounded by oil bubbles without getting burned. 
• Ingredients Should Be Cold: The main secret to the perfect tempura batter is to keep it cold. Use cold water and ice cubes to make the batter cold. You can also use chilled flour for extra light and cold batter. The reason for making the batter cold is that cold water reacts with hot oil immediately, making it crispier than regular nuggets.
•  Don’t Waste the Leftover Batter: One secret tip from John’s kitchen is to make tempura shrimp and tempura vegetables. The method is simple: coat the shrimp, potatoes, eggplant, root vegetables (or whatever veggie I have in my fridge) in batter and fry them until light and crispy. They are just like fritters. John often fries squash blossoms in leftover batter, which is so yummy. 

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