10 Tasty Ways to Save Time with Breaded Chicken

By the author of The Ultimate Guide to Frugal Living and The Flat Broke Cookbook 

Whether you make them yourself on food prep day or get a great deal on ready-made ones for the freezer, breaded boneless chicken cutlets or strips are an incredibly versatile meal starter that can save you both time and money. And let’s face it, sometimes saving time allows us to save money because it prevents an order to Doordash or a trip through the drive-through.

I’m just trying to be real here – we don’t always want (or have time) to make every single meal from scratch every single time we eat. If you’d never ever ever use any of these shortcuts, that’s awesome! This roundup is here for the folks who do, from time to time, turn to some prepped ingredients for meals.

10 ways to turn breaded chicken into a delicious meal

Here are some delicious ways to use them with simple sauces you can create on a dime. These are all tested and true with my family, and big hits. They taste a lot like restaurant meals but at a fraction of the price.

Boneless “wings”

Want the flavor of boneless chicken wings without the work or the high price? Use pre-breaded chicken strips to make your own.

1. Simply prepare the strips in your oven or air fryer as per directions.
2. In a large bowl, mix up your favorite wing sauce. We like to mix a sweet barbecue sauce with some Frank’s red hot or a similar hot sauce.
3. Toss the hot strips generously in the sauce.

Serve this with carrot sticks, celery, and either ranch or bleu cheese dressing.

Hot honey chicken sandwiches

Hot honey chicken is all the rage and this easy hack will have it on the table faster than you can hit a drive-thru.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions.
2. In a saucepan, combine honey, hot sauce (something along the lines of Franks), cayenne pepper, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, and a smidge of salt.
3. Drizzle the honey sauce over the hot, crisp chicken.
4. Plop it on a toasted hamburger bun with some ranch dressing and shredded lettuce. Serve immediately with fries. (I usually cook oven fries while I’m cooking the chicken.)

Lazy chicken parm

I love love love chicken parmesan, and obviously, as a bit of an Italian food purist, I’d rather eat the kind that a grandma slaves over lovingly for hours. BUT – with no such Nonna in sight, sometimes you have to hack it.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions. Use a pan with sides so you can add the sauce directly to it when the time comes.
2. Pop open a jar of marinara sauce (either homemade or good storebought) and dump the entire thing in the pan with the chicken.
3. Top this with some parmesan cheese and mozzarella, then pop it back in the oven and bake it until the sauce is heated through and the cheese is fabulously gooey.

Serve it with spaghetti tossed with olive oil and garlic, some crispy bread, and a salad if you’re really getting fancy. You can also serve it on toasted baguettes for a chicken parm grinder, ala NYC.

Orange chicken

If you love Panda Express orange chicken as much as my family does, you’ll probably like this little copycat. This works better with chicken strips or nuggets.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions.
2. In a saucepan, combine 2/3 cup of orange marmalade, 3 tbsp soy sauce, a splash of vinegar, some powdered ginger, some garlic powder, and crushed chili peppers if you like it spicy.
3. Heat it up until you can combine it thoroughly.
4. Toss your prepared chicken in the sauce.

Serve this over a bowl of rice and steamed veggies. (Broccoli and green beans are very tasty with this.)

Chicken and waffles

I’ll be honest – I’m totally NOT a chicken and waffle fans. But one of my daughters just loves it and you can easily hack it with some freezer items.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions.
2. Mix your maple syrup with a sprinkling of cayenne pepper for kick and butter for saltiness.
3. Make waffles (either the toaster kind of from scratch.)

Assemble this by plopping your prepared chicken onto your prepared waffles and drenching the whole thing with your sweet-spicy-salty syrup. Voila!

Chicken fried chicken

This Southern delight relies on the white gravy for the wow factor.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions.
2. Meanwhile, make a batch of white gravy. Heat up 2 tbsp of meat drippings, then whisk in 3 tbsp of flour and 2 cups of milk. Add salt and pepper to taste
3. Drench your prepared chicken with white gravy then add a whole lot more black pepper than you think you need.

Serve this with mashed potatoes and a veggie for a hearty Southern-style meal.

“Fried” chicken salad

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions.
2. Put the chicken aside and let it cool.
3. Meanwhile, assemble your salad. I like to use greens like romaine or baby spinach, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, and some corn.
4. Slice up the chicken on top of the salad.

Douse it in ranch dressing, toss, and serve.

Lazy Daisy Cordon Bleu stacks

Some of us are kind of lazy. There, I said it. I love Cordon Bleu chicken, but i don’t love the work involved in pounding the chicken and rolling it up. So, I do a lazy version.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions, pulling it out of the oven 5 minutes before it’s done.
2. Top it with thin-sliced ham and swiss cheese.
3. Put it back in the oven and make the sauce. Melt 2 tbsp of butter then whisk in 2 tbsp of flour. Slowly whisk in one cup of milk, then 1 tbsp of dijon mustard. Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce and then up to 1/2 a cup of Parmesan cheese. Stir frequently as the sauce thickens.
4. Once the sauce is ready, pop the chicken, ham, and cheese stacks on a plate and cover them with sauce.

Serve this with buttered rice and steamed veggies. (Asparagus is especially tasty.)

Chicken ranch wraps

Here’s an easy-peasy meal for any cold-breaded chicken you happen to have in the fridge.

1. Slice your breaded chicken into bite-sized pieces.
2. I like to toss the filling like a salad instead of slathering ranch on the tortilla. In a bowl, toss together chicken, shredded lettuce, ripe tomatoes, crisp bacon, and some shredded cheese. You can also add some avocado or other produce if you wish.
3. Put it in the center of the wrap. Fold over the end, then roll the wrap up tightly.

Serve it with a handful of chips or some veggie sticks.

Fake Fil-A Sandwiches

If you are a Chik Fil-A fan, here’s a knockoff sandwich you might enjoy.

1. Prepare your chicken in an air fryer or oven as per directions.
2. Put mayo on a bun. I like a metric crap-ton of mayo but use your desired amount.
3. Plop on some lettuce and some good dill pickles, then top it with your cooked chicken.

If you want to be authentic, serve it with waffle fries. However, if you don’t care too much about authenticity, any fries will do.

What about you?

Do you ever turn to frozen items to speed dinner along? Do you make big batches of things like breaded chicken to start your meals? Do you have any other breaded chicken recipe ideas to add? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

About Daisy

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews.

Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.