While it’s not completely necessary, chilling your breaded foods in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes before pan frying or air-frying will give the breading more time to adhere to the food. The exception to this rule is when there is an ingredient in the mix that is inherently salty – like Parmesan cheese, pre-seasoned breadcrumbs or salted nuts. In order for the breading to be properly seasoned as well, however, you also need to season the breadcrumbs. Season the flour with salt and pepper, or season the food before dredging it in the flour. The only way to season the surface of the food is if you add salt and pepper to the first stage of breading. In most cases, you should season both the flour and the breadcrumb stages of your breading process. To every thing, there is a season… or at least there should be! The crumbs can’t hold onto the flour, so it’s the egg in between that keep the two together. The egg (or buttermilk) is the next step and it works as the glue between the flour and the crumbs. It’s the flour that will bind the two together and keep your breading where you want it to be – on the food. If you didn’t coat a chicken breast in flour, for instance, the egg would just slide right off the slippery chicken. The flour creates a dry surface on the wet or moist food and it’s this dry surface that the egg will hold on to in the next step. There are usually three steps to breading foods and they are all important so don’t skip a step! Although it might feel counter-intuitive, the first step in breading is to coat with flour. Remember – flour first, then egg, then crumbs… Here’s how you can achieve both of those goals.

The keys to successful breading is to make sure the food is tasty AND to make sure the breading stays on the food and doesn’t fall off during cooking. It’s this exterior breading that is so important to the finished dish, so consequently the process of breading is a very important step. Some foods are not just dredged in flour, but breaded too in order to enhance flavor and texture. For instance, sometimes we dredge meats with flour before sautéing to enhance browning and to create a crispier texture on the outside. Dredging is a culinary technique used to coat a wet ingredient with a dry ingredient before cooking.

Seasoned flour for dredging chicken