Pretzel crusted chicken breasts with a sweet and tangy honey mustard sauce.
Honey mustard is my favorite type of mustard especially when we’re talking chicken.They belong together like peanut butter and jelly.
The homemade honey mustard sauce is used two ways. First, to coat the chicken before dredging in the pretzel crumbs and second, as a tasty sauce.
While the chicken was cooking I was dunking pretzels into it left and right. To say it’s slightly addicting is an understatement.
I may have had to make a second batch. I’ll never tell.
Pretzel crumbs make the best crispy coating for chicken! They work miracles on baked chicken making it so crunchy you might mistake it for fried. They form a crust that traps all the juices inside the chicken where they belong to help make it moist and tender.
You get crunchy pretzels, soft chicken and mouth-watering sauce in every single delicious bite making this an easy favorite.
Update: I tested and improved on the original recipe after some readers expressed problems with the pretzel coating. You can still find the recipe that I used here from Food & Wine if interested. Below is my updated version and what I feel is a fail-proof recipe. The pictures above are the new recipe and the one below the old.
Pretzel crusted chicken breasts with a sweet and tangy honey mustard sauce.
Ingredients:
2 cups panko crumbs
2 cups pretzel crumbs*
1/2 cup neutral tasting olive oil
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/3 cup honey (Iike clover or orange blossom)
1/4 cup bottled water
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 + 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts
1/2 cup flour, plus more if needed
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 400° F. Lightly grease with oil a large, non-stick baking sheet or roasting pan. If you don't have a non-stick pan line a regular pan with parchment and lightly grease with oil.
- In a large skillet over medium heat toast the panko crumbs until lightly golden, stirring constantly. Remove from the pan and allow to cool.
- In a food processor pulse the pretzels until coarsely ground (small crumbs with some small pretzel pieces) then add them to a medium bowl and mix with the panko crumbs. Wipe the crumbs out of the food processor.
- Add the oil, mustard, honey, water and vinegar to the food processor and pulse until smooth.
- Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the flavor to suit your own tastes by adding more mustard or honey.
- Pound the chicken breasts out to an even thickness using a mallet. Season well with salt and pepper.
- Pour half of the dressing into a large shallow bowl or dish, put the flour on a large plate and add half the pretzel mixture to a large, shallow bowl or dish (add the remaining half pretzel crumbs to the dish as needed).
- Working one at a time and using tongs dredge the chicken in the flour then into the dressing allowing excess to drip off then into the pretzel crumbs patting them on if needed. Place on greased baking sheet.
- Bake 16 - 25 minutes depending on their thickness/size or until cooked through (internal temperature 165 - 174 degrees F.).
- Let the chicken sit 5 minutes before serving with the remaining honey mustard dressing.
Set up a dredging station:
