Today’s recipe cooks up moist and flavorful, swathed in a deliciously textured panko crust, which creates a blissful contrast between the crisped coating, and the moist interior.

Panko vs Breadcrumbs

What are they? I’m old enough to remember when Panko, here in the West, was only available in specialty stores and ‘ethnic markets.’ Today, these things are available in any decently stocked supermarket. From tonkatsu to chicken katsu, to pork schnitzel sandwiches and crunchy sweet potato cakes, these breadcrumbs are practically as ubiquitous as their ‘non-panko’ counterparts. However, ‘what’ are they? And are they ‘really’ any different from ‘non-Panko’ breadcrumbs? To start off, Panko is produced solely from crustless white bread, which is processed into flakes and ‘then’ dried. This process, generally, results in a dryer and flakier consistency than ‘non-Panko’ breadcrumbs, which in turn producers a ‘lighter yet crunchier’ consistency for the food it’s used to coat. By contrast, ‘non-Panko’ breadcrumbs can be made from any sort of bread, usually a mix of breads – though higher end “Italian Breadcrumbs” will be made from Italian loaves, similar to French and Spanish breadcrumbs. Non-panko breadcrumbs also are typically ground into finer, more uniform crumbs, and due to the various oils that are used to prepare them, they tend to be ‘less dry’ than their Panko counterparts.

Differences in Application: Generally, Panko is used for breading and topping, but only in instances where you want a ‘substantial’ crunch and texturing, and where the ‘uniformity’ of that crunch and texture is ‘not’ important. By contrast, ‘non-Panko’ breadcrumbs work excellently in ‘every other instance,’ including in things like stuffing, binding meatloaf or burgers, and – naturally – as breading, when you might not want the substantial crunch and texturing that Panko provides.

Oven Baking Versus Frying – A Needlessly In-Depth Dive

I admit that I dream in shades of fried food, and that I’ve argued with myself more than is healthy over the best ways to make those dreams a gastronomic reality. When pressing myself as to whether to oven bake or fry a particular dish, my heart always cries to fry, while my head cautions to the contrary, assuring me that “Oven baking is very nearly as good.”

But is it? And what’s the difference, really, anyway?

Let’s answer those questions and a few more.

After all, there are occasions when oven baking is “just as good,” or even ‘preferable’ to the deep fried alternative. Let’s cover that in today’s needlessly in-depth dive.

Frying - The ins and outs

You’ve heard of ‘low and slow’ as a gentle cooking method to achieve meat that’s both super moist and decadently tender? Well, the first thing to understand about frying is that it’s essentially ‘high, fast, and harsh,’ but achieves ‘almost’ the same thing – a moist and tender interior, but with a reliably crisped exterior.

How so? To answer, we need to understand a tiny bit of the ‘science’ that’s happening when you drop food into boiling oil.

Be it in a pan or in a deep fryer, when you place food in boiling oil, there are two conflicting series of ‘micro explosions’ that occur at the moment of impact. The first and most notable is the expulsion of steam from the surface of the boiling oil itself. This one is visible to the naked eye. The second series of ‘micro explosions’ occur from the food itself, largely in the form of surface water vapor, juices, or anything else that might ‘evaporate.’ This in turn creates a ‘steam barrier’ around the food.

And that’s when the magic starts happening.

Trapped between the boiling oil and the food, the steam barrier persists around the food like a halo, repelling the boiling oil, while simultaneously allowing the heat from the oil to cook the food. However, the heat lessens as it transfers through the steam barrier, creating something of a ‘coronal effect,’ where you have a blistering exterior and ‘mildly less hot’ interior. In essence, there is a ‘heat exchange’ between the steam barrier, the oil, and the food, with heat being lost at each interval. Thus, the exterior and interior cook at two different temperatures.

The end result is a crisp exterior and a moist interior. This is the luscious combo that makes things like fried chicken so delicious. It’s also the only way (and I mean ‘the’ only way) to make something like fried zucchini blossoms. Those little gems will simply wilt away in the oven.

Oven Baking - Cooking with Stagnant Air

Now imagine the exact opposite everything I just described.

Baking in an oven is essentially ‘cooking with stagnant air.’ I know that doesn’t sound terribly appetizing, but it’s more or less what’s happening.

To help visualize what I mean, think of an air fryer. An air fryer uses ‘rapid air technology’ to ‘swath’ food in circulated currents of uniformly heated air. In the oven, you have stagnant air that’s heated unevenly from the heating element. This changes somewhat in convection ovens, but the point still remains. You have a transfer of heat from the element to the air to the food.

While an air fryer ‘does’ achieve a ‘fry-like’ crisp due to the rapidity with which it cooks and the high temperature of the air, it does ‘not’ achieve the ‘coronal effect’ mentioned above due to the lack of a steam barrier. Any moisture that evaporates after coming into contact with the heated air simply escapes into that same air. Thus, the inside of the food is cooked at the same high temperature as the exterior of the food.

Where Oven Baking Excels

Now, before you go thinking that frying is the breakaway star of the show, oven frying ‘does’ have quite a few major advantages over traditional pan frying or deep frying. First and foremost, the ‘moisture gap’ between oven fried and deep-fried food can be mitigated quite a bit – or even erased entirely – by simply cooking the food at a lower temperature for a slightly longer period of time. This will result in a slightly less crisp exterior, however.

Regardless, there are instances where oven baking (or frying) can indeed achieve some of the same results as frying. For example, I actually ‘prefer’ preparing steak fries in the oven. Sweet potato fries, similarly, also fair quite well in the oven. I’ve also had great success oven frying calamari, as opposed to deep frying (yes, those shots are oven fried).

Pros and Cons of Both

The biggest pros of frying food – in fact one might say the ‘only’ pros to frying – is the crisp exterior and moist interior of whatever it is you’re frying. One further pro (and con) is that during frying, the food invariably takes on some of the oil, and thus added fat, further enhancing the flavor of your food (fat ‘is’ flavor, unfortunately). So, in that regard – yes, deep frying is always at least ‘somewhat’ less healthy.

However, health aside, the enhanced flavor and texture of deep frying comes at the expense of a ‘mess.’ Frying ‘is’ messy, and this is true regardless of whether you’re pan frying or deep frying. You also need a fair bit of oil, which naturally increases the cost of whatever it is you’re cooking, and once you’re done frying you need to go through the hassle of properly disposing of that oil.

If you’re deep frying, as opposed to pan frying, that also means you need to make space for a deep fryer. And now not only do we have more of a mess, we now also have less room.

However, frying also comes with one other con…or ‘sort of’ con, and that’s the simple ‘inflexibility’ of it.

No, just hear me out on this one, especially the creatives among you.

Let’s say we have a beautiful batch of coated chicken. Let’s imagine we’ve coated the chicken in a nice egg wash, and then tossed them in some richly seasoned panko. That’s as far as that recipe can go if you want to fry it. You can’t take the recipe any further – the cooking method simply won’t allow it. Whatever you can ‘stick’ onto the chicken ‘is’ the recipe. However, if we opt for oven baking, we could do things like dress up the chicken with a mix of chopped tomatoes, capers, onions, and herbs in olive oil, and then spread that mixture over the chicken before cooking, thereby allowing those added flavors to cook into the chicken. Doing things like that just aren’t possible in a deep fryer.

So, while there’s a plethora of creative deep frying recipes out there, the oven is simply a ‘larger canvas.’

And that’s really it, the rest is up to whichever method you prefer to indulge in, and for which purpose. They both have their pros and cons, and both are better in different circumstances.

So, let me know in the comments below what you think.

Have you had any luck trying your favorite deep fryer recipe in the oven? Or are their recipes that you ‘prefer’ oven baked over fried? Are there any tips, factoids, or pointers that I missed or didn’t explore in enough depth for your taste? Let me know below, I would love to hear from you!

Other Fried Delights from LTG

1) Homemade Onion Rings. Onion rings and today’s panko fried chicken? Yes please. I prepare my onion rings with just a hint of spice, and a thick, dense batter that crisps up beautifully during frying.

2) Crispy Fried Cauliflower Balls. One of my absolute favorite uses for cauliflower. Crisp, crunchy, flavorful, and moist, these are a real treat. If you’ve got some cauliflower that you aren’t sure what to do with, or are simply looking for a new use for cauliflower, these have got you covered.

3) Cajun Fried Chicken. This Cajun-style fried chicken features a substantial, crispy crust that bursting with flavor. Pleasantly spicy, and unabashedly decadent, this is my favorite fried chicken recipe.

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