Buffalo Chicken Bites

Broccoli redeems anything

Ingredients:

Wet
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)
Buffalo style hot sauce (I use Tabasco or Frank's) to taste (I used about a tablespoon)

Dry
1 cup seasoned panko bread crumbs (then season them some more)
1/3 cup grated Romano cheese
1 tbsp oregano, basil, and/or parsley (I use a tsp of each or whatever I have on hand)
1 tbsp paprika
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (to taste)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1.5 - 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast cut into bite sized (~1") pieces

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Cut the chicken up last (unless you feel like washing your hands halfway through in order to get the other ingredients out, d'oh).

Dip the chicken in the butter mixture to coat. If the butter starts to solidify (mine did), nuke it for a few seconds to remelt. I just put all the chicken in the butter mixture for a minute because I got interrupted. After a few minutes the butter had solidified around the cold chicken. I nuked the whole bowl for about 15 seconds a couple times to remelt as I went along. It still worked. Maybe better?

Anyway, after dipping the chicken bites in butter, dip them in bread crumbs until completely coated. Use one hand for wet dipping and the other for dry dipping in order to avoid breaded fingers.

Place the double dipped chicken bites on a cookie sheet (or two). You can crowd them in pretty well, it's not like they spread, but don't let them touch or they might not cook all the way. Brush or drizzle the remaining butter mixture over the chicken, garlic and all. Bake until browned and crispy, 10 - 15 minutes. Beware of your smoke detector going off from burning crumbs on the pan like mine did. Check a couple bigger pieces of chicken, by cutting them in half, to make sure they are not at all pink inside. Drizzle with more buffalo sauce if desired. I eat them with vegetables, to make up for all the butter.