Baked "Fried" Pickles

I was washing dishes last night and was hit by a craving.  I don't have any idea why, but I decided that before I finished cleaning the kitchen, I should give into my whim and make them. Fried pickles.

I think I first heard about fried pickles on The Food Network, the source of all things unhealthy (hello Paula Deen and Guy Fieri), and my first taste of them was from Buffalo Wild Wings on my birthday last year.

The Buffalo Wild Wings fried pickles were just okay.  I wasn't overly impressed.  Plus, they were actually fried, so not altogether healthy.  I needed to try them again, but from another source.

On my quest, I pinned a number of recipes to my Pinterest board, should the urge to make fried pickles ever strike.  And when it did last night, I was ready.

As luck would have it, I even had all the ingredients.  This also explains many of the random ingredients in my pantry.  I'll see a recipe and buy the ingredients for it, but then the whim passes (or, more likely, I've moved on to another craving) before I have the opportunity to make it.  I still can't remember the recipe the fish sauce is for, but I have it, just in case.  But I digress... 

Baked "Fried" Pickles
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Ingredients:

1 jar pickle chips

1/2 cup Egg Beaters

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon Penzey’s Forward seasoning, or your favorite spice blend

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs

Directions:

Turn oven broiler on high and place one oven rack in the highest position.  Drain juice from the pickles and place them on a plate lined with several paper towels to soak up any extra juice.  In a small bowl or dish, whisk together the Egg Beaters and flour.  Add the Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, garlic powder, seasoning, and pepper and mix well.  Place bread crumbs in a shallow dish.  Dunk pickle chips in the batter, then dredge in the bread crumbs.  Place chips on a cookie sheet coated with non-stick cooking spray.  Broil chips for 2-3 minutes, then remove the cookie sheet from the oven and turn each chip over.  Broil for an additional 2-3 minutes.  Serve with ranch dressing and/or mustard.

The result?  Quite tasty, and these baked chips totally satisfied my craving.  I recommend eating the pickles while hot though, because they're not so good cold.  Just so you know.