Cheeze It Chicken Tenders

Rain all week. Alabama rain in October isn't gentle — it's committed, the kind that falls sideways and turns the parking lot at the daycare into a lake and makes my windshield wipers work like they're auditioning for something. I drove to work every morning through the gray and arrived damp and the toddlers didn't care because toddlers live in the permanent present tense and the permanent present tense this week included puddles, which are apparently the greatest invention since crackers.

We couldn't go outside for outdoor play, so I set up sensory bins inside — rice, dried beans, measuring cups. Mia put beans in her ear. I got them out. This is my life now. I am eighteen years old and I am extracting legumes from the ear canals of small humans and I am not complaining because honestly, compared to some of the situations I've been in, a bean in an ear is a solvable problem, and I have come to deeply appreciate solvable problems.

Thursday night I tried to make Gloria's fried chicken for the first time in my apartment, by myself, with the cast-iron skillet and Gloria's index card propped against the sugar canister. The card says: chicken pieces, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika. Dredge in flour. Fry in oil, 325 degrees, don't crowd the pan. That's it. That's all it says. It does not say how to know when the oil is 325 if you don't have a thermometer. It does not say what "don't crowd the pan" means when your pan is ten inches and the chicken thigh is the size of your hand. It does not say what to do when the flour falls off in the oil and burns and the smoke alarm goes off and you're standing on a chair waving a dish towel at the ceiling while oil spatters on the stove.

The chicken was edible. Not good. Edible. The crust was patchy and the inside was a little pink near the bone so I put it back in the oven for twenty minutes, which Gloria would call a crime against chicken but Gloria was not there to see it and I'm not telling her. I ate it standing at the counter with hot sauce and a paper towel and thought: this is how you learn. You fail at the thing in private. You eat the failure. You try again next week. I called Gloria after. She asked how it turned out. I said, "Fine." She said, "Mm-hmm," which is Gloria for "I know you're lying but I love you anyway."

I’m still going to learn Gloria’s fried chicken — I’m not giving up on that index card — but in the meantime I needed a crust I could actually trust to stay on the chicken, one that didn’t require a thermometer or a decade of intuition baked into my hands. These Cheeze It chicken tenders are what I landed on the following week: same cast-iron skillet, same determination, dramatically better results. If you’re also somewhere in the middle of learning, this is a good place to practice the patience without the smoke alarm.

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

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs chicken tenders (or chicken breasts cut into strips)
2 cups Cheeze It crackers, finely crushed
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons neutral oil (vegetable or canola), for frying

Instructions

Set up your dredging station. Place the flour in a shallow bowl. In a second bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. In a third bowl, combine the crushed Cheeze Its, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. Line them up in that order — flour, egg, crackers.
Dredge the chicken. Pat the chicken strips dry with a paper towel (this helps the coating stick). Working one piece at a time, coat in flour and shake off the excess, dip in the egg mixture, then press firmly into the Cheeze It crumbs on both sides. Set on a plate as you go.
Heat the skillet. Warm a 10- or 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat for about 2 minutes, then add the oil. The oil is ready when a pinch of crumbs dropped in sizzles immediately without splattering wildly. You don’t need a thermometer — trust the sizzle.
Fry in batches. Add chicken strips in a single layer without crowding — this means 3 or 4 pieces at a time, not the whole batch at once. Cook 4–5 minutes per side over medium heat until deep golden and cooked through (internal temp 165°F). Transfer to a wire rack or paper-towel-lined plate.
Repeat and serve. Fry remaining tenders, adding a small splash of oil between batches if the pan looks dry. Serve immediately with hot sauce, honey mustard, or whatever makes you happiest on a Thursday night.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cheeze It Chicken Tenders — Because the Crust Is the Whole Point