Can I substitute heavy cream for buttermilk in baking chicken nuggets?

You probably can, but there is something about the sour milk ( buttermilk ) that tenderizes the chicken. Here is a homemade substitute


Homemade Buttermilk





(This recipe yields 4 servings)








1 cup whole milk


either 1 and 3/4 Tablespoons cream of tartar or 1 Tablespoon white vinegar or 1 Tablespoon lemon juice


Add acidic ingredient (tartar, vinegar or lemon juice) to the milk and stir. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. The milk should start to curdle. Stir well before using.





A combination of plain yogurt (3/4 cup) and whole milk (1/4) cup can also be used to replace a cup of buttermilk in most recipes.Can I substitute heavy cream for buttermilk in baking chicken nuggets?
In spite of what others have said, the answer is no. The whole ';soak in buttermilk'; part has 2 purposes. 1 in just to moisten the surface to make the coating stick. But the acid in buttermilk also softens the meat up a bit and adds flavor.





Now if you're just looking for something to dip it in so the coating sticks, then use milk. You'll get no extra flavor from the cream. But to do it right you do need buttermilk.Can I substitute heavy cream for buttermilk in baking chicken nuggets?
The question was not what would be better but could one be substituted for the other. As a liquid ingredient, the answer is simply--yes. What the results would be is another question.
You could!! but you could also use either half and half or regular milk. Or you can put a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar in each cup of milk you are going to use for dipping the chicken to make sour milk, which is a bit thicker than regular milk, but would coat like the buttermilk.





My aunt always used regular milk for dipping her chicken before breading it. She saved the cream to put on other things like strawberries.
For chicken nuggets, sure. You can even use regular milk.





(For other dishes, probably not though)
NO, you should use plain yogurt instead. The yogurt will give you the enzymes needed to tenderize the chicken.
yep
Regular milk would work better and not have all of the added calories.





Yogurt would help tenderize the chicken (which is the only reason recipes say buttermilk and not regular milk).





Or you could use regular milk with some sort of acid (i vinegar or lemon juice is best) to give it a nice tangy flavor.





I think though that if you use heavy cream it might affect your final product. Heavy cream is 36% fat, while buttermilk has very little fat, so there could be some difference.
Interesting question. My most recent edition of Cook's Illustrated covered something on this. They said that for savory dishes, a better sub for buttermilk would be plain yogurt thinned a little with milk to the right consistency. The reason for this is the tang that buttermilk gives is significant, and the yogurt provides that, while milk (and probably cream) would not.





They said in baking, though, that regular milk would be fine. I would think the heavy cream's added fat would cause some problems with the breading on the nuggets. Might make them greasy, and might even make them brown too quickly/burn.





Hope that helps--I'm an old ';from scratch'; improvisational cook, but I don't know everything yet!