French Toast Chicken Sandwiches

Yes, another French Toast recipe. Blame my husband because his sweet tooth and love for breakfast are why I’m always making it! Today I’m bringing you a hybrid of sorts, combining my standard French Toast recipe with one for a well seasoned fried chicken cutlet, forming one of the most delicious sweet and savory breakfasts on the go you could ever imagine: French Toast Chicken Sandwiches!

I’m not sure about other regions but down here in the south chicken biscuits are very standard breakfast fare. Sometimes you’ll find them topped with egg and cheese too, or smothered with gravy. I decided to kick that up a notch and send my husband off to work with the portable breakfast of his dreams – but I didn’t have or feel like making biscuits, so a French Toast Biscuit Sandwich was out. In comes a loaf of brioche for him, and Croissant Toast for me!

French Toast Chicken Sandwiches Ingredients

Feel free to jump to the full recipe, but here are useful notes about the ingredients you will need to make this French Toast Chicken Sandwiches recipe:

• Boneless skinless chicken breasts: You can use thighs if you’re into that. Just use a mallet to pound them out into an even 1/2″ thickness, and cut them in half. Now you’ve got cutlets that will cook evenly and should remain nicely sized even after frying, making for good sandwiches.
• Good bread: I used Trader Joe’s Sliced French Brioche and La Boulangerie’s Croissant Toast for the French Toast Chicken Sandwiches you see pictured but any bread will do. No matter what you decide to use you’ll want to avoid soaking it for long; the bread can’t be too custardy in the center because it has to be strudy enough to support the chicken.
• Salted butter: Salted butter is important because it’ll help balance the sweetness from the custard.
• Buttermilk: My preffered tenderizing marinade and wet dredge for fried chicken. Whole milk whisked together with an egg will suffice (add a capful of vinegar too, if you have it and you’ve got homemade buttermilk).
• Whole milk: Normally I would use heavy cream but I didn’t have any! I increased the amount of flour and that thickened the custard up nicely. Heavy cream, half-and-half, oat milk – any of these would work.
• Egg yolks: As I mention in all of my french toast recipes, we use just the yolks so it doesn’t taste eggy.
• Granulated sugar, light brown sugar, powdered sugar: The sugars are for sweetness, of course, and the powdered sugar along with a lil’ flour acts as a thickener for the custard, so it coats the bread instead of just soaking right in. We need the French Toast for these Chicken Sandwiches to be sturdy. Since we’re not adding syrup or anything, the sugar has been increased from what I’d normally use to compensate.
• All-purpose flour, cornstarch: For dregding the chicken, and for battering the french toast.
• Ground cinnamon: It’s not french toast without cinnamon! Adjust the amount to your taste, but I use quite a bit so the French Toast flavor is rampant.
• Vanilla extract: Warm, soft, gentle, and necessary.
• Seasoned salt, paprika, ground black pepper: We’ll use these to season the chicken directly and the flour dredge. Black pepper only goes in the flour.
• Peanut oil: for frying the bread and the meat. Any oil or fat with a high smoke point will do fine.
• Equipment: Here’s all of the equipment I use to make these:

How to Make French Toast Chicken Sandwiches 

Full instructions are included in the recipe below, but here is a basic overview of what you’ll need to do, along with some important tidbits to help you make the most of this French Toast Chicken Sandwiches recipe:

• Marinate the chicken. The night before you’re gonna make the French Toast Chicken Sandwiches – unless you’re a super early riser or something – add the chicken to a bowl and season with 1 tsp of seasoned salt. Pour in the buttermilk and stir to coat the chicken thorouhgly. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least an hour, up to overnight. Remove and let rest at room temperature about 30 minutes before you’re ready to fry so it cooks more evenly.
• Make the dredge and the custard. Grab two more bowls, about medium in size. To the first add the self-rising flour, cornstarch, remaining seasoned salt, paprika, and black pepper. Whisk together and set aside. This is your dry dredge for the fried chicken. In the other bowl add your egg yolks, cinnamon, sugars, vanillas, and flour. Whisk together into a thick paste, then slowly whisk in the milk until everything’s well combined. There might be lumps of flour but that’s OK. This is your custard for the French toast.
• Dredge the chicken. Remove a piece of chicken from the buttermilk and allow any excess to drip off. Drop it in the flour and cover the top with more flour. Then, use the back of your hand to press the chicken down into the bowl, and the flour into the chicken. Flip the cutlet over and repeat, spooning flour onto the top and pressing it into the chicken. Once the cutlet is nicely, thourougly coated, shake of the excess flour and place on a plate to rest. Double-dredging is allowed here, but not necessary. Repeat with all of the cutlets and set aside.
• Prepare to fry! Turn your oven on to warm – or whatever the lowest temerature is – and place a wire rack over a baking sheet in the center of the oven. This is your warming station: you’ll keep the separate components of these French Toast Chicken Sandwiches hot until it’s time to assemble! Next, figure out what you’re frying in (check out the equipment widget above to see my choices) and fill it up about 1/2″ with oil. Cover with a lid and preheat the oil over medium-high heat until the oil bubbles gently (about 360°F).
• Fry the chicken. Gently add the chicken to the hot oil, making sure not to crowd the pan – let them dance freely! Cook for 7 minutes, then turn and cook for another 5-7 minutes, until cooked through and golden brown. It’ll vary but remember that chicken is safe at 165°F internally. Transfer the chicken to the warming rack in the oven and continue with the recipe.
• Prepare to pan-fry. Reduce the heat to medium low and place a large skillet where the frying pot just was. Or use another one. If you’re good at multitasking you can combine these steps for the French Toast Chicken Sandwiches into one! Anyway, add a drizzle of oil and a small pat of butter in the center. Once it’s melted, swirl them around to coat the surface of the pan.
• Dip, drip, push. I sing this phrase – to the tune of Kick, Kick, Push by Lupe Fiasco – every time I make french toast using the Croissant Toast especially. I submerge each piece of bread in the custard quickly and remove it just as quickly, let the excess drip off, and then place the bread in the skillet, and push it down with either a spatula or my fingers to make sure the center makes contact with the skillet.
• Cook it kinda low, and kinda slow. We want things crisp on the outside, soft in the middle. If we have the heat too high, it’ll brown too quickly. If we have the heat too low, it’ll dry out. Keep it medium, and keep adjusting, if needed. The time will vary, but generally, it takes about 7 or 8 minutes per side.
• Keep warm and carry on. If your oven is clean just transfer the french toast directly to the rack to rest while you prepare the other batches. Alternatively, place it on the rack with the fried chicken cutlets.
• Finish and serve. If you wanted bacon and eggs on your French Toast Chicken Sandwiches you shoud have been cooking that while you were making the french toast. If you didn’t, assemble the sandwiches by placing a cutlet on one slice of french toast, topping it with another side, and dusting the top lightly with powdered sugar. Cut it down the middle to make it easier to eat and have at it! Dassit!

Amp Up These French Toast Chicken Sandwiches 

I wrote the recipe before I made these French Toast Chicken Sandwiches, and while running it past the family the addition of bacon was brought up. I personally feel like with just a dusting of powdered sugar these French Toast Chicken Sandwiches are pretty damn indulgent, but I’m never gonna say no to beef bacon, so I added it to mine and loved it!

For the man, I took it up a notch further and that explains all the French Toast Bacon Egg and Cheese Chicken Sandwiches you see pictured in this post. The second time I made these I didn’t add bacon or anything else and they were still amazing. Decide for yourself!

Obligatory Pins – 

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