Have you ever looked at the ingredients of a recipe and thought “what the heck, that is such a weird combination of flavors, how in the world is that going to taste any good?”
I happened to do that when my coworker & friend, Pam, told me about this recipe she had found. She told me she made it for dinner and her husband “loved it” and how she was hesitant to even try it because she smelled the sauce and was kind of repulsed by it. Haha, that totally made me want to try to make it ;) However, she followed up with that statement with “but then I tasted it and it was AWESOME.”
She wasn’t lying, folks. This sauce, albeit smells awkward (just cause of the ingredients), is the sh!t. Excuse my French there, but I have no other words to describe this sauce. It is what makes this chicken dish and I don’t want to have chicken any other way now (kidding of course). But that being said, it’s just seriously THAT good. The smooth and rich consistency of it with the Dijon hint in the background makes this such a great sauce. Good thing I have quite a bit of sauce left because I can whip up another batch of these babies or try this on pork or something else! Oh, might I add that there’s bourbon in the sauce? Does that convince you a little more now to go make this tonight?
Sidenote: this tastes NOTHING like bourbon chicken at those Chinese food places in food courts that hand you bourbon chicken on a toothpick. It’s far from it.
bourbon chicken
Ingredients
- 5 chicken tenderloins
- 1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
- 4 tbsp clarified butter*
For the sauce:
- 3 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 3 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 2 tbsp bourbon whiskey
- 3/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp plus 1 1/2 teaspoons of low sodium soy sauce
- 4 tbsp chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1 tbsp cubes
Instructions
- In a small casserole dish, mix together breadcrumbs and 2 tbsp. of clarified butter.
- Cover each chicken tenderloin, both sides, with the breadcrumb mixture.
- In a large skillet, heat up your remaining 2 tbsp. of clarified butter on medium-high heat.
- Add in your chicken and cook both sides until brown and chicken is cooked all the way through, about 5-7 minutes. Flip often as you don't want the breadcrumbs to get black.
- To make your sauce, combine the Dijon mustard, brown sugar, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and bourbon. Mix until smooth in a small saucepot over medium heat then remove from heat when it starts to simmer.
- Whisk into the hot sauce the butter in 1 tbsp. cubes at a time.
- Plate your chicken and sides (I just steamed broccoli) and drizzle sauce all over, plus extra on the side for dipping.
Notes
Source: All Recipes
The smell might be a little off putting but i can dig into something based on looks alone. ::grabbing fork:: got any extra?
Looks great. and awesome deets on the clarified butter.
The chicken looks amazing!
You were right – I do love this! What a great recipe!
This looks so mouth watering! I love chicken but have a hard time finding recipes for one or 2.
Thank you
Martha @ Stir, Laugh, Repeat
Making this right now and I am looking forward to it-looks delicious. But I wanted to alert you that when you hit printer friendly it somehow adds 1 cup additional dark brown sugar to the sauce. I came back to check because I thought that was a bit odd. thanks!
thanks for catching that — it’s fixed now :)
Made this tonight for dinner, it was great. I served it with white rice and green beans, very tasty.
This looks so good! Quick tip regarding clarified butter: it’s also known as ghee, and can be found in many Indian markets (or the Indian section of the grocery store). Makes life easy – it comes in a resealable tin, and you can use as much or as little as you want, when you want.
I haven’t opened my new can yet, but I think I just found the recipe to get me to do that.
Ok, so I am really a novice in the kitchen, but this recipe looks delicious. Any other tricks involved? Also, I wanted to substitute for very thin sliced chicken breasts, do you know approximately how many lbs would work for this recipe? 5 chicken tenderloins doesn’t sound like much, maybe a lb? Thanks so much! I’m so happy I found your website today!!
Approx. 1- 1 1/2 pounds of chicken breasts would work. I really don’t know because I never have cooked this with chicken breast before, but it should be ok. Good luck and enjoy!
Thank you so much! This is one I will be holding on to! Perfect for when you only have 30 mins to put something together.