The Best Fried Chicken You'll Ever Make

Epicurious

In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates how to make the best crispy fried chicken at home.

Transcript

00:00The crunch says everything.

00:04I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor,

00:07and today I'm gonna show you how to make fried chicken.

00:09With my method, you're gonna get crunchy,

00:11juicy, tender chicken that's never dry.

00:14This is fried chicken 101.

00:19This might be controversial,

00:21but I like to use boneless chicken thighs.

00:24The thigh has lots of flavor to it, has some fat to it,

00:28and it doesn't dry out that easy,

00:30and it gets nice and crisp when you fry it up.

00:32People might say, Chef Frank, why boneless?

00:35In order for it to get a nice, crispy crust

00:37and be cooked all the way through,

00:39I like to take the bones out.

00:40I'll bone them myself.

00:41If you like bone-in chicken, this recipe still works.

00:45You just need to cook it a little bit longer.

00:47Time to bone out my chicken thighs.

00:48This is a firm boning knife.

00:50What I like to do is get in there alongside the bones,

00:53open it up, pinch under the bone,

00:56run my knife through, save these for stock,

00:59don't throw them away, get any cartilage off,

01:01trim off any extra skin.

01:03I do want skin on there, but I don't want a lot of extra.

01:05Cut this in half,

01:06and I just think it's a better portion size.

01:09Now, some might argue,

01:10oh, that's just a nugget or a chicken finger,

01:12but chicken fingers and nuggets are not made with thighs

01:14with the skin on.

01:15This is not a nugget.

01:16This is not a chicken finger.

01:18I stand by my word.

01:19Okay, my chicken is prepped.

01:20Now it's time to make my brine.

01:22A brine is basically a salty solution

01:27that we're gonna marinate our chicken in.

01:28The brine is gonna tenderize.

01:30It's gonna add flavor.

01:31It's gonna add some saltiness and seasoning

01:33that's gonna allow our chicken to hold on to moisture.

01:36What I like to do is mix my brine in a bowl

01:38before I put it in my chicken

01:40to make sure all of my ingredients

01:41are distributed really well.

01:42And what I have here is some buttermilk.

01:44Now, buttermilk is a cultured milk.

01:47It has a lot of acidity.

01:48It's got some tanginess.

01:50I like to add hot sauce to my mixture as well.

01:52This is Louisiana hot sauce.

01:54I think it tastes great.

01:55You can use whatever hot sauce you have.

01:56Garlic powder.

01:57Now you might say,

01:58hey, Chef Frank, you're a fancy chef.

01:59Why are you using garlic powder?

02:01I really think garlic powder

02:02is a great convenience ingredient.

02:03In order to get the punch that this gives,

02:05I'd have to add a lot of fresh garlic.

02:07And I think garlic powder does the job.

02:09Some mustard powder.

02:10Mustard powder might be one of those ingredients

02:12that you're questioning.

02:13I think mustard has a great sharpness to it.

02:15It adds a little spice to this.

02:17This flavor that everyone's like,

02:19I know that flavor,

02:20but I'm not sure what you put in here.

02:21And then of course, salt.

02:23This is a brine,

02:24so we want a fair amount of salt.

02:26So once I have all these things in the bowl,

02:28just whisk it together.

02:30So it's combined really nice.

02:32Make sure everything melts.

02:33The salt melts in there.

02:35And we don't have any big lumps.

02:36Once it's combined,

02:37all of this can go right on top.

02:39Make sure the chicken is covered with brine.

02:41So if you have to make a little more,

02:42make a little more.

02:43Chicken, when you put it in a bowl,

02:45tends to stick to itself.

02:46So if you don't move it around,

02:48you're gonna have the outside

02:49of these two pieces of chicken brined

02:51and the center with no brine.

02:52So I like to just mix it up

02:54to make sure my chicken gets coated really, really well.

02:57The most important part of the brining process

02:59is to let it sit.

03:01I do at least 12 hours.

03:02Now, if you don't have 12 hours,

03:04that's fine.

03:05But if you wanna maximize that juiciness

03:07and tenderness of the chicken,

03:08you need at least 12 hours in the fridge.

03:11The chicken has been brining for 12 hours

03:15and now we're gonna drench.

03:16Basically, we're taking our wet chicken

03:18and coating it with dry flour.

03:20The whole point of doing this dredge

03:21is that the flour mixture is gonna coat our chicken,

03:24form a nice crispy crust to seal in the moisture

03:27to ensure a juicy fried chicken.

03:29First thing I wanna do is season my dredge.

03:31I'm gonna add about a couple tablespoons of salt here.

03:34If we don't add salt to the dredge,

03:36it's gonna be a little bland.

03:37And then I have some fresh cracked black pepper.

03:40I like using a whisk for dry ingredients.

03:43It distributes things really well.

03:45And then we can just take our chicken out of the brine

03:47and put it right into the dredge.

03:49That brine is kind of sticking, I want that.

03:51That's gonna help my flour stick to those pieces of chicken.

03:55So just drain it lightly, place them into the flour.

03:59Word of caution here,

04:00don't just start dumping a lot of chicken in here.

04:03I do two or three pieces at a time.

04:05If you add a lot of chicken at once,

04:07our flour gets really too clumpy

04:08and it gets really difficult to work with.

04:10A thousand pieces in there,

04:11I'm not gonna be able to coat it really well.

04:13Make sure that we get it into all the cracks and crevices,

04:16give it a light shake,

04:18and then we're gonna put it on the rack.

04:19I like to use a rack for this part

04:21because it allows the dredge

04:22to evenly absorb the moisture from the chicken.

04:25I try not to let them touch too much.

04:27So we're gonna let this first dredge of flour

04:30soak into the chicken.

04:32We wanna let this sit

04:33so that the dredge gets a little sticky and wet.

04:35And this is gonna ensure that our crust

04:36does not slide off the finished piece of chicken.

04:38If it's wet and sticky, don't worry,

04:40it's gonna be okay because I'm gonna do a second dredge

04:44before we fry,

04:45so that we get that really nice, thick, crispy crust.

04:47One important thing here

04:48is not to get rid of your flour at this point.

04:50The brine that fell in there

04:52kinda wet some of the flour

04:53and we got these nice little lumps.

04:55This is gonna be great when we do our second dredge

04:57because those lumps are gonna give us nice, crunchy pieces.

05:00So we have finished the first dredge of the chicken.

05:02We're gonna let it sit here for about 25 to 30 minutes,

05:04which gives us a lot of time to set up our fryer.

05:07We have our chicken that has absorbed

05:11all of that first dredge.

05:13We have our dredge and we have our hot oil.

05:16I chose to use a cast iron.

05:17Cast iron pans are really dense and retain heat.

05:21When you fry, sometimes when you add the chicken to the pan

05:24you get a dip in temperature

05:25and it makes your chicken greasy and soggy.

05:28The cast iron lets us hold onto that heat

05:30and maintain a nice, even temperature throughout frying.

05:33So I'm gonna take my chicken.

05:34You can see that it's nice and sticky.

05:36I'm gonna put it in for the second dredge.

05:38I'm gonna get those nice, big chunks, those nice, big bits.

05:41Give it a light shake, but don't shake it off too much

05:44because that flour is gonna be our crust.

05:45When we drop into the fryer, we drop away from us

05:48so that if it splashes, it splashes away from us.

05:51You can adjust your heat if you feel it's too high.

05:53I think I got a really nice heat right now

05:56and we're just gonna let it fry.

05:57Leave it alone.

05:58Once we start to see it getting brown on the bottom,

06:01we'll give it a flip.

06:02One of the most important things that you wanna watch for

06:04when you fry is bubbles.

06:07If you see bubbles, that means moisture is cooking out

06:10and it's sealing that chicken in, oil is not getting in.

06:13If you drop this into the pan and there's no bubbles,

06:17you're gonna have greasy chicken.

06:18So you wanna make sure that you always have some bubbles.

06:22All right, so it's been about four minutes

06:23and we're gonna flip it over so the other side can cook.

06:26I'm flipping away from it as well so I don't get splashed.

06:30This batch is ready to go.

06:32Drain it really well so we're not dripping everywhere.

06:36Right onto a rack.

06:37The reason I wanna put this on a rack

06:39is that it won't be sitting in its juices

06:41and it'll remain crispy.

06:42If you put this on a plate,

06:43the chicken's gonna steam from underneath

06:45and your chicken's gonna get soggy and we don't want that.

06:48So put it on a rack to rest, drain it really good,

06:51and then you fry your next batch.

06:53If I was to take this chicken and not do the second dredge,

06:57all the spots where it was wet would actually burn.

07:01So that second dredge is really important.

07:04Watch what's going on.

07:05I'm looking for a nice even brown color on the bottom

07:08before I give it the flip.

07:09So my chicken is done frying.

07:11Look at it.

07:12It's got that nice craggly crust on the outside.

07:14I know that it's juicy in the middle because I brined it.

07:17I just can't wait to get this on a plate and eat it.

07:22My fried chicken takes a little time,

07:24takes a little effort, takes a little bit of love,

07:26but look at it.

07:27It is gorgeous.

07:28Who would not want to have a piece of this fried chicken?

07:32Put it up to my microphone.

07:33Can you hear this?

07:34That is the sound of crispy chicken.

07:41That wasn't a big enough bite.

07:42Hold on.

07:46The crust is super crisp.

07:48The chicken on the inside is super juicy.

07:51The seasoning is all throughout the chicken

07:53because we let it brine for 12 hours.

07:55I think this is the perfect fried chicken.

07:56I know frying at home can be intimidating sometimes,

07:59but if you follow my method, you follow my technique,

08:01you're gonna have tender, juicy,

08:03and crispy fried chicken every single time.

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