Bang Bang Chicken

Extremely crispy chicken chunks drizzled with a sweet chili mayo sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil, or more, as needed
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup all­purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 large egg
1 tablespoon hot sauce
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1­inch chunks
1 cup Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

Prep:  Cut chicken into 1" chunks

SAUCE
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons hot sauce (Frank's Red Hot preferred)

Instructions
To make the sauce, whisk together mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce, honey and hot sauce in a small bowl; set aside.  (Cook's Note: Instead of a bowl, I used a condiment squeeze bottle and a mini-whisk.)

Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together buttermilk, flour, cornstarch, egg, hot sauce, salt and pepper, to taste.

Batter is done!

A few at a time time, dip chicken into buttermilk mixture, then dredge in Panko, pressing to coat.

Use a toothpick, skewer or your fingers to coat the chicken
pieces all over with the Panko crumbs.

Working in batches, add chicken to the skillet and cook until evenly golden and crispy, about ­5 minutes. As we've talked about in previous posts, be sure your oil is at the correct fry temperature (use a candy/deep fry thermometer) - ideally it should be 350 degrees.  Internal meat temp should be 165 degrees for optimum food safety.

Transfer to a paper towel-­lined plate.
Serve immediately, drizzled with sweet chili sauce.