Forget Breadcrumbs And Use This Snack Aisle Favorite To Bread Your Chicken

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

There's nothing quite like a golden brown, perfectly crispy fried chicken cutlet. A bronzed layer of crunchy breadcrumbs envelops a tender, pounded chicken breast, making each bite a perfect one. It's hard to improve upon perfection, but if there's one area that could be more flavorful, it's the breading. Even seasoned breadcrumbs can be a bit lacking, which is why you should use a boldly flavored chip like Doritos to bread your next chicken cutlet; it's an easy swap in our crispiest chicken cutlet recipe.

Similar to breading pork chops with your favorite bag of chips, crushed Doritos make an incredible breading for thinly pounded chicken cutlets. The easiest way to break down whole Dorito chips is to use a food processor to pulse the chips into fine crumbs after crushing the whole chips into slightly smaller chunks with your hands. You could also go old-school and take out some of your frustrations by placing the chips in a zip-top bag, sealing the bag, and then hitting the chips with the flat side of a meat pounder or with a rolling pin. It can help to set a dish towel between the bag and your pounding utensil to prevent any tears in the plastic bag while you crush up the chips.

No matter which type of chicken you're breading, there's a crucial step to prevent coating from falling off the chicken: After coating it in a thin layer of flour, you need to dredge the chicken in an egg wash before attempting to adhere the breading. Without these essential steps of flouring and then dipping in beaten eggs, the Doritos won't adhere to the chicken and will flake and fall off as it cooks.

You can use Doritos to bread other cuts of chicken, not just strictly chicken cutlets. Normally, fried chicken is dredged in seasoned flour, but if you want to experiment, you could crush Doritos very finely and use the powder to bread the chicken instead. For extra-tasty chicken tenders, keep the Dorito pieces slightly larger than you'd use for fried chicken, about the size of breadcrumbs, and use the traditional flour, egg, then breadcrumbs dredging method, but swap the breadcrumbs for the tiny Dorito pieces.

While any flavor would work, think about the flavor profile of the rest of your dish, how you plan to serve the breaded chicken, and which Dorito flavor will best complement those factors. For a spicy sandwich, any of the Flamin' Hot flavors would be great, and you could coat chicken in the Flamin' Hot Cool Ranch Doritos to make a wrap with blue cheese and spicy buffalo sauce. For a barbecue-inspired sandwich, try the Sweet & Tangy BBQ Doritos and make a sandwich with melted cheese, more barbecue sauce, cole slaw, and pickled red onions.