Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups, your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery sales and affordable ingredients! This week, I picked up a super-cheap pack of chicken drumsticks (which are really one of the most affordable meats in general, but regularly go on sale under $1.00 a pound in my neck of the woods).
So, how do you add some pizzazz to this, one of the most humble cuts of meat? Let’s go with… a bunch of garlic, butter, and cheese in our Cheesy Garlic Chicken Drumsticks recipe today. You’ll end up a batch of cheesy garlicky good comfort food, that’s still kid friendly and fun to eat.
Today’s recipe for cheesy garlic chicken drumsticks was inspired by Kittencal’s moist cheddar-garlic oven fried chicken breast recipe, which was one of the first things I tried making off the internet lo these many years past (back when I was first starting to dip my toe into this whole cooking thing!). Although I haven’t baked up her recipe in years, I still have fond memories of the amazement when I actually cooked something new, and saw that it was good.
Somehow I was thinking of this chicken again the other day, so thought for a change of pace I’d give the basic concept a try with the under-$2.00 pack of drumsticks I had on hand (rather than using the original boneless skinless chicken breast). I also punched up the other seasonings a bit to balance out the garlic, and used panko rather than breadcrumbs for a bit of extra crunch.
Cheesy Garlic Chicken Drumsticks
Ingredients
– for the chicken
3 lbs chicken drumsticks
– for the garlic butter
1/4 cup butter, melted
1.5 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
– for the cheesy panko
1/2 cup panko
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup finely shredded cheddar
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan
Black pepper, to taste
Directions
Set a baking rack on top of a foil-lined baking sheet and spray it with cooking spray. Cut excess skin off drumsticks.
Melt the butter in a shallow bowl, then stir in the minced garlic, garlic powder, and seasoned salt.
In a separate shallow bowl, combine the panko, cheddar, Parmesan, smoked paprika, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, chili powder and black pepper.
Dredge each drumstick in the butter mixture, then roll them in the cheesy panko mixture.
Arrange the breaded drumsticks in a single layer on the baking rack, then bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes or until drumsticks reach an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees, using tongs to flip them over halfway through.
Note: I had pretty small drumsticks here; if yours are larger you may need to adjust the cooking time upward to compensate.
That’s Cheesy! That’s Garlicky!
If you like garlic, you’ll probably like these cheesy garlicky good chicken drumsticks! I did lose a little more of the breading than I’d like when flipping the chicken over, so will ponder that for future tries — but these cheesy garlic chicken drumsticks ended up so juicy and full of flavor that I had to share them with you nonetheless. Well, not literally share… because, sorry: They were a hit with all the boys in this house, and we somehow ate them all. 😉
Cheesy Garlic Chicken Drumsticks, printable recipe
Cheesy Garlic Chicken Drumsticks
Ingredients
- for the chicken
- 3 lbs chicken drumsticks
- for the garlic butter
- 1/4 cup butter melted
- 1.5 Tbsp minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp seasoned salt
- for the cheesy panko
- 1/2 cup panko
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 cup finely shredded cheddar
- 1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan
- Black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Set a baking rack on top of a foil-lined baking sheet and spray it with cooking spray. Cut excess skin off drumsticks.
- Melt the butter in a shallow bowl, then stir in the minced garlic, garlic powder, and seasoned salt.
- In a separate shallow bowl, combine the panko, cheddar, Parmesan, smoked paprika, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, chili powder and black pepper.
- Dredge each drumstick in the butter mixture, then roll them in the cheesy panko mixture.
- Arrange the breaded drumsticks in a single layer on the baking rack, then bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes or until drumsticks reach an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees, using tongs to flip them over halfway through.
Notes
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Bonster
Friday 27th of April 2018
We made it tonight. Unfortunately it turned out pretty greasy and the meat didn’t have much flavor. I don’t know what I did wrong, maybe my chicken legs were too big.