Buttermilk Baked Chicken

Fried Chicken is a summer time staple as far as I'm concerned and I have a good recipe for it posted on this blog. However, one cannot eat fried chicken very often, it just isn't figure friendly. So what is a girl to do? Find a way to get that fried chicken taste using an oil free method. Thus the Buttermilk Baked Chicken was born. Here I've marinated the chicken in buttermilk and wing sauce just like my fried chicken and then coated it with a crunchy bread crumb that has been seasoned the same way I do the flour for my fried chicken. The results are pretty darn close.

6-8 pieces of bone in, skin on chicken
1 quart of buttermilk
1/3 cup of hot wing sauce
3 slices of bread
1/2 cup panko crumbs
1/2 teaspoons each of garlic, onion powder, black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
2 tablespoons of oil

Mix the buttermilk and wing sauce together and place it in a large zip lock bag with the chicken. Marinate the chicken for at least 30 minutes or all day. Preheat oven to 450. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and lay a baking rack over the sheet that you have sprayed well with cooking spray. Grind the bread in a food processor. Spread it out onto a baking sheet and crisp up in the oven for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and turn it down to 400. Place the bread crumbs in a bowl with the panko, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, salt, paprika and poultry seasoning. Remove the chicken from the marinade and drain. Roll each piece in the bread crumbs, covering it well. Lay each piece onto the baking rack, leaving space between each piece. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until juices run clear. Serve.