Buffalo Chicken and Blue Cheese Orzo

What goes better with buffalo chicken than blue cheese, right? I decided to make buffalo chicken bites tonight and wanted to make a side with blue cheese. I thought about doing oven baked fries with a blue cheese dipping sauce, blue cheese scalloped potatoes, and even blue cheese twice baked potatoes, but since Jon isn't a potato fan and none of my ideas seemed all that exciting, I decided to keep looking.

I then found a great recipe on allrecipes.com - Caramelized Onion and Blue Cheese Orzo. THIS grabbed my attention so I decided to give it a try. It was amazing!!! I wasn't sure if this was the right side for such a casual chicken dish, but it was perfect. Jon even agreed with me.

Here is my recipe for the buffalo chicken bites:

- Trim chicken and cut into chunks. Marinate in Frank's Red Hot or some other hot pepper sauce for a few hours.
- When you are ready to cook, mix breadcrumbs, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes in a bowl. Pour some of the hot pepper sauce into another bowl.
- Dip each piece of chicken in the hot sauce and then coat in the breadcrumbs and place in a large baking dish.
- Cook on 375 for about 15 minutes, flipping the chicken halfway through. Turn the broiler on for the last few minutes of cooking.
- Remove the chicken from the oven and dip each nugget in Frank's Red Hot Sauce and then put into a serving dish. I didn't want them to get soggy so I didn't fully dip each piece in the sauce.

They were very spicy - just the way we like them! To make a less spicy version, don't marinate or dip the chicken in the hot sauce. Instead, dip them in flour, egg, and then the bread crumbs. Also, don't add cayenne to your breadcrumbs.