These delicious easy chicken croquettes are a great recipe for using up leftover chicken.
The chicken is mixed with onions, dried sage, and seasonings, before being coated in crisp breadcrumbs and fried. The resulting croquette is salty and crispy on the outside with a deliciously soft juicy sage spiked chicken center.
Perfect as an appetizer with a dipping sauce, or serve these with white gravy and homestyle mashed potatoes.
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What is a croquette?
A croquette is a small ball or log that is coated in breadcrumbs and fried. The filling can be meat-based, like these chicken croquettes or potato based.
Many meat croquettes start with a roux but don't worry these chicken croquettes are super easy and you don't need to make a white sauce!
Fun Fact: The word croquette comes from the French word croquer which means "to crunch". The French are famous for their potato croquettes, but it was the Spanish who started the trend for putting meat into the croquette!
How to pronounce croquette.
The word croquette is pronounced: Crow-Ket rather than crock-et.
p.s I love the word croquettes, it rolls off the tongue! Plus it just sounds crunchy and delicious!
How to make chicken croquettes
As I mentioned above these chicken croquettes are great for using up leftover chicken!
To make the croquettes you will need, leftover chicken, onions, oil, ground sage, seasonings, egg and breadcrumbs. I like to use panko breadcrumbs so they get nice and crispy!
The onions are cooked off until they are soft, then the filling is chopped up together in a food processor. To make the breading easier instead of dropping these into an egg wash, the egg is added to the filling mixture. This helps everything to stay together and makes the process less fiddly.
The mixture will be quite wet, but this is good, this helps the breadcrumbs stick to the croquettes.
How to cook croquettes
You can shallow fry these or deep fry them.
I recommended deep frying them!
I subscribe to Nigella Lawson's deep frying philosophy that 'the high heat actually seals the food and means less oil is absorbed.'
I love this philosophy so dietitions please don't disillusion me!
Life is short, deep fry your croquettes, buy the shoes, say I love you when you feel it and always order an appetiser!
Enjoy x
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RECIPE - Chicken Croquettes
Ingredients
For the mixture
- ½ onion (white/brown/yellow/red)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 cup cooked chicken
- 2 tablespoon breadcrumbs (regular or panko)
- ¼ teaspoon ground sage
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- pinch of pepper
- 1 egg
To coat and fry
- 4 tablespoon panko breadcrumbs
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- Finely chop the onion.
- Add the oil to a frying pan and cook the onions until they are soft and starting to colour.
- Place the chicken into a food processor, along with the breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and sage.
- Blitz until everything is chopped. Add the onion mixture and pulse again.
- Check your seasoning. It might need more salt.
- Once you are happy with the flavor, crack in the egg and then whizz until you have a thick paste.
- Fill a shallow bowl with a little water. Wet your fingers and take a teaspoon of the mixture. Roll it to form a ball and set aside on a plate.
- Repeat until all of the mixture has gone. (approximately 20 balls).
- Tip the panko into a small bowl and carefully add a chicken ball, juggle the bowl about, rolling the ball until it is well coated.
- Place it back on the plate and coat all of the croquettes.
To Deep Fry
- Deep fry at 350°F/175°C for around 3 minutes until golden brown.
- Drain on kitchen paper before serving.
To Shallow Fry
- Add about a tablespoon of oil to a pan and cook them over a realivly high heat. Then add more oil and turn the croquettes.
- Drain on kitchen paper before serving.
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