Almond-Crusted Chicken Nuggets

July. Four months of lockdown. New Jersey is slowly reopening — outdoor dining, limited retail, cautious optimism. The virus is still here but the curve has bent and the hospital is breathing again. Raj is sleeping better. Not well — but better. The Zoom therapy is helping, or the reduced hospital load is helping, or both. He slept in our bed every night this week. In our bed. Next to me. The basic geography of marriage, restored. Dr. Pham is teaching us to fight. Not to avoid fighting — to fight productively. "You both avoid conflict," she said during session three. "Priya, you absorb. Raj, you withdraw. Neither of you actually engages with the disagreement." She's right. I'm an absorber — I take the stress, the anger, the hurt, and I metabolize it internally. (Sometimes literally — the twenty-seven pounds I've gained are partially made of unspoken frustrations.) Raj is a withdrawer — he retreats into work, into sleep, into the clinical distance that makes him a great cardiologist and a difficult husband. The homework this week: fight about something small. Actually fight. Say "I'm angry because—" and let the other person respond. We fought about the dishes. The dishes! After three months of pandemic and marital crisis, we fought about who loads the dishwasher. "You stack the plates wrong," I said. "There's no wrong way to stack plates." "There is a wrong way. The big plates go on the bottom." "That's a preference, not a rule." "It's thermodynamics, Raj. The water needs to reach—" "You're not going to cite thermodynamics in a dishwasher argument." "I just did." We laughed. The first real laugh in four months. Over thermodynamics and dishwasher loading. The fight was tiny and perfect and Dr. Pham would be proud. I made Amma's chicken 65 for our couple dinner this week. Crispy, spicy, triumphant. The dish of small victories. The dishes are still stacked wrong. But we're fighting about it, which is progress.

Chicken 65 is Amma’s language for celebration — she made it for exam results, for homecomings, for any moment that deserved a little triumph. I don’t have her exact recipe memorized, but I know the spirit of it: crispy, spiced, unapologetically bold. These almond-crusted chicken nuggets — golden, just spicy enough, gone in minutes — carry that same energy. After a dishwasher argument that made us laugh for the first time in four months, this felt exactly right: small, perfect, and worth celebrating.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup finely crushed sliced almonds
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs
2 tbsp olive oil (or cooking spray)

Instructions

Preheat. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly grease with olive oil or cooking spray.
Make the coating. In a shallow bowl, whisk together almond flour, crushed almonds, garlic powder, smoked paprika, cayenne, salt, and black pepper until evenly combined.
Prep the egg wash. In a separate shallow bowl, beat the eggs until smooth.
Coat the chicken. Working one piece at a time, dip each chicken piece into the egg wash, letting the excess drip off, then press firmly into the almond coating on all sides.
Arrange and oil. Place coated nuggets in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet, leaving space between each piece. Drizzle lightly with olive oil or spray with cooking spray.
Bake. Bake for 18–20 minutes, flipping each nugget halfway through, until the coating is deep golden and the internal temperature reaches 165°F.
Serve. Transfer to a platter and serve immediately with your choice of dipping sauce — a cooling yogurt-mint chutney or a fiery sriracha mayo both work beautifully.

Nutrition (per serving)

Almond-Crusted Chicken Nuggets — The Dish of Small Victories