Easy Toaster Oven Recipes: Baked Ziti & Fried Chicken | Joe vs. The Test Kitchen

In this episode, Joe shows you how to make 2 easy meals using only a toaster oven.

Professional Test Cook Joe Gitter has worked on over 20 cookbooks and performed hundreds of recipe tests. Joe vs. The Test kitchen is an inside look into the mistakes and wins from the recipe testing process, showing the right and wrong ways to cook amazing food.

Buy our winning toaster oven: https://cooks.io/4aVtyGR
Buy our Toaster Oven Perfection cookbook: https://cooks.io/3vRj1xG
Buy our winning Quarter Sheet Pan: https://cooks.io/3vxxsDJ
Buy our winning large saucepan: https://cooks.io/2QQbsgK
Buy our winning cast iron: https://bit.ly/3np7stn

Follow Joe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gitsini/

ABOUT US: The mission of America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Founded in 1992, the company is the leading multimedia cooking resource serving millions of fans with TV shows (America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country, and America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation), magazines (Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country), cookbooks, a podcast (Proof), FAST channels, short-form video series, and the ATK All-Access subscription for digital content. Based in a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot test kitchen in Boston’s Seaport District, ATK has earned the trust of home cooks and culinary experts alike thanks to its one-of-a-kind processes and best-in-class techniques. Fifty full-time (admittedly very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques. Learn more at https://www.americastestkitchen.com/.

If you like us, follow us:
http://americastestkitchen.com
http://facebook.com/americastestkitchen
Tweets by TestKitchen
http://instagram.com/testkitchen
http://pinterest.com/testkitchen

(melodic music)
– What do you think of when
you see a toaster oven?
For many people it’s toast,
bagels and hot pockets,
but a toaster oven like this
can do so much more than that.
During a time when many of us
were forced to work from home,
a group of test cooks
and I were challenged
to write a toaster oven cookbook
so that home cooks can make whole meals
that are easier than traditional methods
but are just as delicious.
There are some limitations to
cooking with a toaster oven.
I mean, they’re smaller,
they’re less powerful
than conventional ovens,
so there are certain things you need to do
to guarantee best results.
Today I’m gonna show you how to make
two unexpectedly delicious
toaster oven recipes.
A spicy fried chicken sandwich
and a ridiculously easy
no boil baked ziti.
I’m gonna show you all
the tricks I learned
while developing these recipes
so you can make awesome food at home
without ever having to fire
up your stove or your oven.
One of the first recipes I developed
for the toaster oven was a roast chicken.
Roast chicken in a toaster oven!
And I was really impressed
by the crisp skin
and moist results we got during testing.
The key to toaster oven roast chicken
is brushing it with melted
butter for browning,
starting with a blast of high heat,
using the convection
function if your oven has it,
and then dropping the oven to low heat
to ensure an even cook.
And it was so much
easier than a traditional
roast chicken recipe.
Now, not every toaster oven
will fit a whole chicken,
but every toaster oven will
fit fried chicken sandwiches.
Shallow frying and deep frying is great,
but it can be messy and wasteful,
and it’s a bit of a hassle.
Your toaster oven will let you make
all sorts of fried foods
without having to fire
up a skillet full of oil.
This kimchi oven fried
chicken sandwich I developed,
is a great example of using a toaster oven
to simplify an otherwise
pretty involved recipe.
There are a few tricks, however,
to getting the crispy, crunchy results
you’d get from frying in oil.
(upbeat music)
We want a crispy coating for the chicken.
Now, wet batters don’t
work in a toaster oven
or actually any sort of oven,
so we’re gonna use something
that’s already crispy.
I’ve got some breadcrumbs here
that I microwaved earlier.
I stirred together a cup and
a quarter of panko breadcrumbs
and two tablespoons of
extra virgin olive oil,
and I microwave them on high
until golden brown and crispy.
Even though breadcrumbs feel dry,
they actually have some
residual moisture in them,
and as they’re next to
the chicken, which is wet,
they’ll never get that crispy.
So for that extra crunch,
you want to always pre-toast
any breadcrumbs you’re using
for any oven baked crispy foods.
You can obviously use your toaster oven
to toast your breadcrumbs,
but I actually like to use my microwave.
It’s faster and it achieves
exactly the same thing.
We need the breadcrumbs
to stick to the chicken.
Now the traditional three layer approach
involves dipping the chicken in flour,
then in egg, then in the breadcrumbs.
The flour sticks to the chicken,
the egg sticks to the flour
and the breadcrumbs stick to the egg.
But we wanted to simplify
this by removing the flour
to see if we could
remove a bowl and a step.
When I tested this, I found
that just dipping in the egg
and dredging in the breadcrumbs
gave us a patchy coating.
Clearly I needed the flour.
I’m gonna whisk together an
egg, two teaspoons of flour,
a tablespoon of liquid
from a jar of kimchi,
half a teaspoon of garlic powder
and an eighth teaspoon of salt.
We found that whisking the
flour directly into the egg,
although unusual, was really successful
in creating a cohesive adhesive coating.
As I’m whisking here,
I just wanna make sure
I wanna get rid of any lumps of flour.
And we still eliminated a step and a bowl.
So I’ve got two chicken
breasts here I’m gonna halve.
Now remember, a chicken
breast is somewhat uneven,
so you always want to
cut a little bit closer
to the fatter end.
I’m gonna sandwich these between
two sheets of plastic wrap
and we’re gonna pound them to
about a half inch thickness.
Pounding the chicken will give
us a better eating experience
’cause you get a greater ratio
of crunchy exterior to
juicier interior chicken.
Okay, chicken’s pounded.
I’m gonna tidy up a little
bit and we can get breading.
I’m gonna take a wire rack
set in a rim baking sheet.
I’m gonna spray it with some veg oil spray
so that the chicken doesn’t stick.
We’re gonna take our chicken,
we’re gonna pat it dry,
and then we’re gonna sprinkle it
with a quarter teaspoon of salt,
so the chicken is properly seasoned.
And we’re gonna take the chicken,
we’re gonna drip it in our egg mixture
and we just wanna let the excess drip off.
We’ll transfer it to our breadcrumbs.
And notice I’m using one
wet hand and one dry hand.
In fact, you should always do that
whenever you’re coating
anything with breadcrumbs.
It keeps things so much cleaner
because the wet isn’t gonna
attract any breadcrumbs
and your dry hand isn’t gonna have
the breadcrumbs stick to it.
And you wanna make sure that
you get a really good coating.
You’re gonna wanna press
on those breadcrumbs.
Remember, this is where all
the crunch is gonna come from.
Okay, my oven’s preheated to 400 degrees
with the convection setting turned on,
and we’re gonna cook these
until they’re golden brown,
and the internal
temperature of the chicken
registers 160 degrees.
This will take 13 to 18 minutes.
So how is this different from
conventionally fried foods?
When you fry conventionally,
you’re plunging cold food
directly into hot oil,
325 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
This will rapidly cause
evaporation of surface moisture,
the exterior of the coating dehydrates,
and that’s what turns it crispy.
At the same time, a thin
layer of starch cooks
around the food which seals
it in and helps keep it juicy.
With this recipe, it’s
still about dehydrating
the exterior of the food.
We use toasted breadcrumbs
for our coating,
which have been dehydrated.
We set the chicken on a wire rack
so that air can circulate
around the chicken,
and we use the convection function.
The convection function
simply turns on a fan
inside the oven, which helps
drive away surface moisture.
This makes the coating nice and crispy.
Now the recipe works as
is without convection,
it just won’t be quite as crisp.
Okay, let’s temp our chicken.
Perfect.
We’ve got 161.
And this really is the best way to ensure
that you have really
juicy chicken every time.
While the chicken’s resting,
we’re gonna put these buns in the oven
and this time we are gonna
use the toast function.
While that’s toasting, we’re
gonna make a spicy mayo.
I’ve got a tablespoon of gochujang,
which is a Korean spicy chili paste,
and we’re gonna combine it
with a quarter cup of mayo
and we wanna mix it
until it’s well combined.
But this spicy mayo goes really well
on pretty much any sandwich.
Okay, toaster’s done.
Let’s build some sandwiches.
We’re gonna spread some
of the mayo on each bottom
and then if you’ve got any extra,
spread it on the tops as well.
Lay them on the sandwiches.
Oh, and you can just see
how well coated these are.
And that was all thanks to
that extra bit of flour,
like there’s actually
not that many breadcrumbs
left in the tray.
Next we’re gonna top it with some kimchi.
I love kimchi.
It’s very simple.
It’s similar to sauerkraut in the sense
that it’s fermented cabbage,
but it’s a Korean technique
and there’s all sorts of other
ingredients in there as well.
There’s fish sauce, ginger, onions,
normally a little bit of garlic,
so it’s really a concentrated
powerhouse condiment
that is so good for livening
up so many types of food.
And I’ll top it with some
crunchy iceberg lettuce,
a little bit of extra texture there,
and a little bit of coolness as well.
Like, it’s so much fun.
The final steps of making a sandwich,
those are the moments where you really
get to think about the different textures
and flavors that the
eater’s really gonna enjoy.
Crown it with our toasted bun.
So here we have four
spicy kimchi, oven fried,
crispy chicken sandwiches that we made
all in our toaster oven.
Got my eye on this one.
That is so good.
The chicken is so crispy
’cause you’ve got all that coating on it.
The inside is juicy and tender.
We didn’t overcook it,
we used our thermometer.
And we were just so careful
with our seasonings as well.
We had this really
powerful gochujang mayo,
had so much depth of flavor.
Along with that kimchi, a fermented food,
which always adds an
extra layer of something.
And this recipe is so
great in the toaster oven
because it’s such an
efficient piece of gear.
It took five minutes to heat
up, 15 minutes to cook it.
That’s 20 minutes.
It takes 20 minutes alone
just to preheat a conventional oven
and a lot more energy.
So this recipe does work
in a conventional oven,
but if you’ve got one of these,
you should absolutely use it.
Okay, we’ve fried some chicken,
we made some great sandwiches,
but can we take it a step further
and make something that
feels like a complete dinner
in the toaster oven?
Enter no boil baked ziti.
(upbeat music)
Baked ziti is a classic dish
that you wouldn’t expect
to be able to make in a
little thing like this.
Traditionally, you have to boil the pasta,
make the sauce, layer with a pasta,
and then bake in a hot oven.
Here, we’re gonna achieve the same thing
without having to boil
the pasta beforehand.
All modern toaster ovens can easily fit
an eight by eight baking dish,
and some like this can even
fit a 13 by 9 inch baking dish.
This makes your toaster
oven the perfect place
for whipping up casseroles like this ziti.
It simplifies what’s
usually a multi pot affair.
To start this recipe, I’ve
got six ounces of ziti.
You could use penne as well.
Cup and a half of marinara sauce.
I’m using jarred, but you
could definitely make your own.
This just makes it a little easier.
Cup of water and a
quarter teaspoon of salt.
And you wanna make sure
that your baking pan
is broiler safe.
We’re gonna use that later.
Because we’re cooking
raw pasta from the sauce,
the amount of water you
add is super important.
I tested this with three
different amounts of water.
I got dramatically different results.
So half cup of water was too little,
the sauce was really dry and
the pasta didn’t fully cook.
A cup and a half of water was too much.
The sauce was watery.
So we settled on one cup of water,
which was the sweet spot.
I’m gonna preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
That’ll always take about five minutes.
While that’s preheating,
we’re gonna cover this
with some aluminum foil.
Because we are cooking
the pasta in its sauce,
but also we wanna trap the
steam in so it doesn’t escape,
and that’ll help cook the
top of the pasta as well.
Okay, we’re gonna cook the
pasta on the middle rack
until the sauce is thickened
and the pasta is tender.
It’ll take 35 to 40 minutes.
Okay, the pasta should be done.
Yeah, bubbling away.
That looks great.
Now we’re just gonna turn
on the broiler function.
Now every toaster oven
has a broiler function
because that’s how you cook toast.
We’re gonna stir in a
quarter cup of mozzarella,
quarter cup of Parmesan.
The mozzarella’s for
that lovely cheese pull.
And the Parmesan just gives
you the extra tangy flavor.
I’m gonna stir that in so
that the mozzarella melts.
And we want the Parmesan just to really
just incorporate with every bite.
Now we’re gonna dollop it with two ounces
of whole milk ricotta,
and then we’ll top it
with another quarter cup
of grated Parmesan
and another quarter cup
of shredded mozzarella.
Beautiful.
And we’re gonna pop this
back under the broiler
until the cheese is melted,
bubbling around the edges,
and it gets this lovely little
dark crusty spots on top.
It’ll take five to seven minutes.
Okay, it’s been about six
minutes and it’s ready.
So we’re gonna take this out
and we just need to let
it cool for 10 minutes.
Oh yeah.
I’m gonna sprinkle it with
a little bit of fresh basil.
Oh, that looks so good.
It smells so good.
It looks so good.
And it was so easy.
Mm.
You get the cheese, which
has really been emulsified
into the sauce.
There’s a really lovely
creaminess from the ricotta,
and that fresh bit of basil
just freshens the whole thing up.
And the pasta, perfectly cooked.
The sauce is cohesive but not watery,
and the pasta, completely
tender without being soaked out.
I mean, this really tastes like
someone’s put a lot of love into it
and spent a couple of hours cooking it,
and it only took us 45 minutes
to make from start to finish.
If you haven’t made whole
meals in a toaster oven,
you definitely start here.
Are you more likely to make the ziti
or the fried chicken sandwiches?
Let me know in the comments below.
Hit the like button, subscribe,
and check out AmericasTestKitchen.com
for these recipes and a whole load more.