Hi Nicole, unfortunately the coating needs to be fried for this dish. You could probably get away with spraying the coated chicken with tons of oil and baking it in a hot oven, but if you're trying to cut back on the fat, you'd probably be better off frying it as the high temperature of the oil when deep frying vaporizes the surface moisture on the chicken, which keeps the oil from soaking into the coating. If you spray it with cooking spray before adding it to the oven, most of that oil is going to remain in the coating.