The Best Chicken Tenders and Homemade Ranch I've Ever Made

you know fancy food is good and all but at the end of the day sometimes all i really want is chicken tenders and homemade ranch and by the way i believe i have recreated ranch to a point where it is better than ranch not trying to toot my own horn but seriously you gotta try this now let's go so here's a nice little trick for tenders if you don't already know it because they have this kind of big tendon you see right here inside and i think the easiest way to get that out is just to take a fork push it through like that so it's flapping out the other side of the fork grab it with something dry like a paper towel because it's slippery and then you just pull and that pulls out this entire tendon perfectly actually and then here's our tender ready for use so just repeat that process with all your tenders okay now i'm doing the same marinade that i use for my fried chicken so buttermilk this is just such a good combo this is dill pickle juice although you could probably use bread and butter pickle juice just gonna be a lot sweeter frank's red hot gonna bring a little heat into this and optional but i'm doing a little smoked paprika paprika i never i never know how to say it just a little in and i'll just give this a good mix being careful with these tenders of course now i'm going to simply cover put in the fridge for about two hours because these tenders are so tiny they're really going to take to this marinade quickly so two to four hours i would say for this marinade all right so i have a confession and that is i love ranch dressing not the bottled ranch mind you the ranch that you get from packets and then mixed with buttermilk and mayonnaise to make homemade ranch but a few months ago i experimented with my own version of ranch not the packets but using my own spices and mix to make a homemade ranch and let me tell you at a certain point i tweaked it enough where i liked it better than the packet okay pretty standard ingredients here we have distilled white vinegar we have garlic powder we have onion powder we have the salt and we have the msg and let me explain to you something about msg and ranch most of the ranch you're eating out in restaurants and at home has msg in it so you really can't complain there there are ranch dressings made without msg but the vast majority of them still have it in there that's probably why we all like it so much right so i'm using msg then we have a little bit of caster sugar that's just super fine sugar but you can always just grind up some sugar or just use regular sugar it's fine then we have buttermilk mayonnaise sour cream and then over here i've just finely chopped my fresh herbs i have chives dill and parsley simple as that if you prefer cilantro as one of these herbs or you want to take one out because you don't like it all good now i want to make sure i don't end up with a lumpy or grainy sauce because some of these spices are still kind of coarse so here's what we do here's the vinegar i'm going to put the salt into the vinegar the sugar and the msg and that's just going to help dissolve those ingredients into the ranch give this a good little mix the sugar will dissolve quickly first followed by the msg and salt now here i have a mortar and pestle i'm going to put in that granulated garlic because as you can see that is pretty coarse the onion powder is really fine but i'm just going to go ahead and throw it in there anyway and just grind this up to make it nice and fine there we go okay i'm going to start with my mayonnaise here just going into a bowl followed by my sour cream if you want to do all mayo you can definitely do that too i like a little sour cream sometimes but all mayo is perfectly fine now just whisk that a little and we'll just start streaming in that buttermilk whisk it all in now i'm going in with my spices here and this is also going to help thicken the sauce so when you make this it's going to be a little bit loose but after it sits in the fridge for half an hour to an hour it's going to really thicken up a lot so keep that in mind and go the spices now in with the vinegar salt and msg and sugar make sure you scrape that out if it's not completely dissolved yet it will continue to do so and now simple as can be we add in our herbs and they go one final mix and your homemade ranch is done use this for anything you want salads dips dressings etc and we're going to stick this in the fridge where as i said it will continue to thicken up also if you ask me really thick ranch well it's gross i don't like it at all you'll see when that thickens up it's just perfect i think it should be a little bit drippy i think it's nicer but to each their own obviously if you want it really thick add less buttermilk and more mayo all right back to the chicken it is now done doing its thing what i need to do now is dry off these tenders really well so i'm gonna drag them along the side of the bowl and then just drop them onto some paper towel that will get these nice and dry now we're gonna go for the old flour egg wash and panko bread crumbs starting with the flour here and i'm just adding onion powder to it that dehydrated onion taste is just incredible for me here give that a little whisk and then of course just some egg wash that's just two eggs i just whipped it up and last but not least panko breadcrumbs pretty much the only bread crumb for me so here we go flour first coat it up shake off a little excess into the egg wash coat that up and then run it off the side like that a little bit and then straight into the panko yeah coat these up and i like to just push just a little bit on it not to break the meat but it just really helps that panko get in every little nook and crevice and there we go tender ready to rock before we cook this chicken just check out the ranch after an hour and see just how much thicker that is right for me this is like pretty perfect but again if you want it thicker just add more mayo but that's plenty thick all right so i'm just going to shallow fry these you could deep fry them if you want you could try air frying if you spray a bunch of oil on them but i just brought this oil up to about 375 degrees it's about a half inch layer just sitting in the bottom all right go ahead drop your chicken always lay it away from you like that like so and don't overcrowd the pan i'm just going to do one more in here there we go these tenders are well tenders they're gonna cook really quick right so i'm literally doing two minutes and we're about to flip them right now all right that's good for me go ahead and flip nice and golden brown and now you can see right when you flip them they really want to take this salt so i'm just putting on the salt now even though it's still in the oil oh good it's really gonna stick right now it's a little sprinkle of salt that's it all right there another two minutes for four minutes total and we're gonna rest them for about three minutes hello my friends i'm very much looking forward to eating you god that looks good all right let's get into it and here we go [Music] come on i've been a professional chef my whole life cooked so many fancy things vlogra truffles all that stuff i swear i enjoy this just just as much as any of that it's just so freaking good the tender is so tender and the range is like i swear to you make this ranch you're gonna like it better than any kind of bottle for sure and also store-bought packet this is like kids food dream wow well my sweet friends thank you for hanging out with me again today the next time you'll be hearing from me i will be in austin texas i cannot wait to show you the new kitchen this new space i have is unbelievable you know the kitchen i've been in is not exactly great for youtube so i'm really excited to share this new space with you we're about to take this youtube channel to a whole new level mark my words and as always drop a like leave a comment if you so wish and turn on notifications if you want to be a psycho and we love our psychos and until next time you know i love you when i'm out

Channel: ThatDudeCanCook

Views: 748,173

Keywords: chicken tenders, chicken fingers, fried chicken, fried chicken recipe, chicken nuggets, chicken tenders recipe, chicken recipe, fried chicken tenders, chicken fingers recipe, how to make chicken tenders, how to cook chicken tenders, best chicken tender recipe, how to cook, crispy fried chicken recipe, homemade ranch, ranch, homemade ranch seasoning, homemade ranch salad dressing, homemade ranch dressing, homemade ranch powder, thatdudecancook, food, chicken, easy recipes

Id: 7E59jABNh60

Length: 6min 58sec (418 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2022