Spicy BBQ Chik'n Bites

This is a great party/sports game recipe! I made it last week for watch the AFC Championship game with our friends - aka 5 to 10 carnivorous, buffalo-chicken loving boys. As you know if you've seen my earlier posts, I've been working my way through a package of Beyond Meat chicken strips so I thought this would be a great way to finish it off! I made this Buffalo Cauliflower Wing Pizza recipe last year from Kristy Turner over at Keepin It Kind. Jay liked the taste of it alot, but didn't like the consistency of cauliflower, since he seems to hate all things cauliflower. So what happens when you combine that recipe with Beyond Meat chicken? Near perfection!

Everyone at the party loved the bites and were surprised to find out that they were vegan. I even duped a couple of the guys and didn't tell them it was vegan until after they had already had some and told me it was delicious! All of them were eaten and I was the only vegan there! Being a group of buffalo-chicken connoisseurs, the general consensus was that the flavor was more BBQ than buffalo, so I decided to change the name to Spicy BBQ.  I'll have to try another version making a more traditional buffalo sauce!

If you don't have a mini cupcake pan you can roll your bites up like you would with pigs in a blanket, but you may not be able to fit as many ingredients in. That was my original plan, but I didn't have enough dough. With the cupcake pan I could keep the bites together without needing any crust on top to keep everything together.

I only ended up using about half of the breading and sauce mix that I made so I saved each one and used them again to create this recipe: Spicy BBQ Carrot Sticks with Tofu Ranch Dip.

Ingredients:
1 Package crescent roll dough or other dough of your choice
1/2 Package Beyond Meat chicken strips
Breading:
1 Cup Almond Milk
1 Cup Chickpea flour (I'm not sure how it would work with other flour since this is the only one I tried)
Garlic Powder
Paprika
Spicy BBQ Sauce:
1/4 Cup Sriracha
3/4 Cup BBQ Sauce
1 Tablespoon starch - corn starch, arrowroot powder, etc.
Salt
Pepper
Tofu Blue Cheese:
1/2 block tofu
3 tablespoons Nutritional Yeast
Juice of Lemon Half
1 teaspoon Miso
1/2 teaspoon Tahini
1 teaspoon Marjoram
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Servings: 24 bites

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine all the breading ingredients in a shallow bowl and mix together well. Slice the chicken strips into about 24 bite size pieces and coat in the batter. Place in a casserole dish or cookie sheet with parchment paper. Make sure that the batter doesn't run together (like mine did...) or else it will be hard to keep the batter on the chicken when you pick it up. Bake for 20 minutes.

While that is cooking, prepare the Spicy BBQ sauce by mixing all of those ingredients together in a shallow bowl.

Add all of the Tofu Blue Cheese ingredients to a food processor and blend them together. Add more marjoram to taste - it's what adds the most of the blue cheese flavor.

When the battered chicken strips have cooled, dip them in the Spicy BBQ sauce and put them back in the oven for another 5-8 minutes.

While that is cooking, roll out your dough and cut it into about 2x2 inch pieces. Divide the tofu blue cheese evenly among each of the bites. Once the chicken strips have cooled, divide them evenly among the bites. Put back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!!

I submitted this recipe to the Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck