How I Developed The Perfect Crispy Chicken Sandwich Recipe

I spent the last two days frying all of this chicken

so that I could make this.

A big part of my job is developing recipes

that thousands of you will make at home.

Today, I'm gonna show you how I developed

my crispiest chicken sandwich. [keyboard clacking]

[tape whirring]

I wanna start with the thing you would normally do first

in the recipe.

I'm gonna take bone-in, skin-on chicken thigh

and remove the bone

but keep the skin on.

I wanna explore whether keeping the skin on

or removing it has implications for the final texture.

Chicken thighs,

as opposed to boneless, skinless chicken breast,

there's a lot more fat in it,

there's a lot more richness.

It's kind of a logical sort of starting point.

You know, already I'm kinda sitting here asking myself,

Well, do people wanna remove the bone

but leave the skin on?

That's something you have to do yourself,

you can't really go into a store yet.

Million-dollar idea,

who's coming with me?

Come on, baby.

Boneless, skin-on chicken thighs?

Just right there in, like, the package,

ready to go?

Just saying.

I'm gonna start with some pre-treatments, right?

So this is what we're doing to the chicken

before it gets fried,

and there's two main elements to that.

Is there some kind of dry seasoning?

Is there marinade?

Some kind of a liquid pre-seasoning?

These are ingredients that are, like, fairly typical

in terms of dry rubs and seasonings in general.

The third option is really just gonna be a control,

which is salt and pepper.

If salt and pepper can get you 85% of the way there,

maybe it's worth considering.

While the chicken is just hanging out,

in the meantime, what I'm trying to accomplish

with this sandwich is a few different things.

One, it's all about texture. [keyboard clacking]

I wanna make the absolute crispiest chicken sandwich.

Next, it's really important to me that this is a recipe

that can be executed in its totality

in a couple of hours max. [keyboard clacking]

Third thing, I want this to have great flavor

that feels somewhat familiar [keyboard clacking]

but offers a little bit of a twist

and maybe something a bit unexpected.

Already another decision has to be made.

I need some sort of dredge,

some way of putting a coating on the chicken

that's gonna start to build some texture in.

But I'm gonna use 1/4 cup of cornstarch.

Starches make things crispy.

They also help with, like, adhesion.

1/4 cup of rice flour.

Rice flour gets, like, very crispy,

but it doesn't necessarily take on a lot of color.

You can't ignore what the chicken's gonna look like

and how we're gonna sell this visually.

AP flour gives you great color

and a nutty depth of flavor.

I have a feeling that whatever I ultimately use,

it's gonna be a combination

or one or another of these things.

Gonna take the fry temperature,

just a very average place,

and just do 350.

So that's the dry rub,

this is our wet marinade,

and this is salt and pepper.

I'm looking for golden brown color.

I'm looking for crispiness.

The chicken is crisp,

but it doesn't feel anything like a batter,

I'll say that.

[soft music]

So this is our dry rub.

It's just so savory.

I think a little bit of sweetness in there

would just balance a little bit of the heat

of the chili flake.

Alright, so now we have our wet marinade here.

I'm not liking this nearly as much as I thought I would.

There's a certain thing that happens

when soy sauce gets cooked out, like, really hard.

The flavor just gets very closed down.

It almost doesn't taste like soy sauce anymore.

Maybe it's like the soy needs to come out,

like maybe, like,

and what's the sesame oil doing in there?

I think we gotta move away from it.

Alright, let's taste salt and pepper

before we get too far ahead of ourselves here.

Like, even salt and pepper plus that dry dredge

already has added up to something

that feels relatively dynamic.

I think I'm officially moving on from the wet marinade.

It's starting to introduce some complexity here

that's not really needed at this juncture,

and flavor-wise, the dry treatment was a good bit better.

Okay, so now I'm gonna try two different versions

of our dry rub.

So the first is garlic and onion powders,

gochugaru, salt, pepper, light brown sugar.

The gochugaru is taking the place

of the Aleppo-style pepper.

A little less spicy,

a little more inherent sweetness,

so really nicely balanced.

I can use more of it

without making this overwhelmingly spicy.

The second is gonna be all of those things

plus freshly grated garlic and ginger.

Again, I'm just gonna do a nugget in each.

This one is sort of like,

well, what have I done?

It's like, it's kind of a paste.

It doesn't really want to adhere,

like it's kind of [beep],

but maybe [beep] in a good way?

I'm using the same mix of starches and flour

that I used before.

That's our pasty guy.

Here is the dry-dry rub.

This is the dry rub without the fresh garlic and ginger.

Really nicely balanced.

I think the sweetness is very much welcome here.

Just really nice, integrated flavors here.

Alright, so this is the version

that has the fresh garlic and ginger.

They're incrementally better.

But is it worth it? I don't think so.

As much as it pains me to rely on a dry rub

when it's like something we've done a lot here

in the test kitchen,

it's having an appreciable benefit in very little time,

and that's getting us to that end point

of making this a recipe that's doable in a couple of hours.

Let's assume that we're working with some version of this

or similar dry brine

and let's move on to batter.

These are gonna be two versions of wet batters.

These both have cornstarch,

but this is rice flour and this is AP flour.

I'm putting baking powder in each one.

Seltzer in batters makes things really light and very crisp.

The bubbling action of the carbonation

helps open up the structure of the batter

and create like a really nice, open, lacy network.

So here's rice flour

and here's wheat flour.

I mean, right off the bat,

I don't love what's happening visually with either one.

Like, this laciness is pretty fun on the wheat flour one,

but neither one feels like it got, like,

quite as, like, deep golden brown as I'm looking for.

Also, the gochugaru,

it's like forming these brown specks in there

that I think are just a little bit visually unappealing.

Rice flour plus cornstarch is giving it a nice crunch,

but it's subtle,

not nearly as, like, pronounced as I would like.

And this is the version with wheat flour.

Flavor's a little bit anemic.

Really need to punch up the seasoning a little bit more.

I think the gochugaru here might be a mistake.

I'm also just not getting the level of crispiness

that I really want here.

What I'd like to do is take the rice and cornstarch mixture,

the wheat flour and cornstarch mixture,

and try a different liquid.

Vodka's an interesting choice

because it will add fluidity

without adding actual water content,

it evaporates very quickly when cooked,

and it doesn't activate gluten.

[keyboard clacking] I wanna see if the vodka

can aid me in the quest for crispiness.

So you can see two very different consistencies.

The rice flour mixture, very tight,

and then the wheat flour mixture,

just a little bit looser.

Alright, so that's the rice flour.

So, like, there's a lightness

and there's a crispiness here with the rice flour version

that I think is pretty compelling.

But flavor-wise, it's wanting.

I'm gonna try the wheat flour version.

The wheat flour version's kind of insane.

It's so light and crisp.

The texture of the batter is such

that it feels like it's, like, been aerated.

It hasn't held on to very much grease at all.

It's just a little bit more flavor going on there as well.

I find that really interesting.

I think the vodka's definitely

having a major effect, you know?

Like, look at where we were,

just kind of like tempura-like shell,

whereas this feels like it's somewhere in between, like,

tempura and sort of southern-style fried chicken to me.

The way that it's, like, really held onto that wheat flour

and created these crags.

I would like to go again on vodka and wheat.

I wanna see if I can make it a touch thicker.

So I'm gonna remake the dry rub.

But instead of gochugaru,

I'm gonna use just regular paprika.

Just gonna add a little bit of color

and a little bit of fruitiness.

One thing that will help batter adhere

is if you pre-coat your meat in starch

or flour of some kind,

and I think cornstarch makes the most sense

just because it has a great ability to get things to adhere.

Definitely a thicker batter.

Is it too thick? I don't know.

We lost the sort of shagginess there.

I just feel like the thicker batter is taking longer

to get crispy and to brown.

And that sucks, that's not where we wanna be.

So, as I feared, you know,

the skin did not get crispy under that thicker shell.

That cornstarch on the chicken as well, I gotta say, like,

it just forms, like, a little bit of like a gummy coating.

Suddenly, like, everything about this feels wrong.

It kind of reminds me of like a fried Mars bar.

Oh, Jesus.

[Hana] It's a little bit fish and chips batter.

Yeah. If you want a crust

that can hold any glaze or sauce,

maybe you want a little more dry component,

kind of like packed in.

But the chicken,

it's very juicy and it's seasoned very well.

How are you envisioning

this fried chicken sandwich visually?

Part of me wants it to feel textural enough

that you could soak it in a very tight glaze,

like you do sometimes with like a Korean fried chicken.

You just have to be careful

that it won't take away-

The texture. Whatever crisp and crust

that you're working so hard to achieve.

So it might literally be

like a brush on top- Right.

Rather than like a soak- Dip it.

Or a dip.

You know, listen,

I'm not where I wanna be and that's okay.

For the next version,

I wanna stick with a lighter batter.

I'm going with a higher proportion of AP flour.

Go up to 1/3 of a cup water

plus 1/2 cup vodka.

One of these is gonna have cornstarch.

Other, no cornstarch.

I love how we have a coating

that's following the natural shape of the chicken.

We made relatively minimal differences here,

but we went from this to this.

That's a huge difference.

Visually, I think we're in a much better place.

The version without the cornstarch seems

to absorb a little bit more of the oil underneath,

be a little bit greasier.

Flavor is good.

I mean, it's very nicely seasoned.

It's almost right on the edge of being over seasoned.

The batter is very light and crisp.

I mean, it really is so crispy,

but it's a different expression of crispiness than, I fear,

than like what most people are gonna want

when they hear the crispiest chicken.

Let's see how the version with cornstarch did.

It's very, very good.

I'm loving the coating,

I'm loving the ratio of sort of the exterior total amount

of batter to chicken.

Got just enough of everything

to kinda do one more pass here.

I wanna just get a full piece of chicken in

so that we can at least experiment

with like a couple of quick finishers tonight.

I'm taking the skin off of this

'cause I just have a feeling,

like, honestly,

like calling for boneless, skinless,

you can buy this, it's ready to go.

I'm curious to see what the difference is,

frankly, without it.

I want just like a little finisher for the chicken.

See if I can make a glaze that can be brushed over.

Kenji, in his recipe,

sort of laid out two sort of possible versions,

thought were really compelling.

One is sort of like a finishing glaze

that's more sweet and spicy,

like, that's gochujang-based.

Another was more of like a sweeter version with soy sauce.

I really wanna see if we can kinda bring this

to a very full-on spicy, deep place flavor-wise.

Gonna do cornstarch treatment.

So the glaze, I wanna pull it down till it's pretty tight.

So a very small amount will really coat the chicken

and deliver, like, a huge flavor upgrade.

Really loving the shagginess of this batter.

What's interesting to me

is just like its texture on fried chicken

that's just presenting in a really new way.

The increased proportion of AP flour,

increased proportion of vodka

had a real benefit.

I wanna set one of these up as a sandwich

just to see where we get with that.

I'm liking the cross section here.

The flavors are great.

You know, the gochujang just really brings

so much intensity.

That glaze is working really hard for me.

The crunch isn't so pronounced, which is good and bad.

Hi! Hi.

Look at this guy!

It is recalling a Nashville hot chicken vibe.

There's a lot going on. Yeah.

But very flavorful.

Definite improvement on the crust from the previous version.

I would say it's currently, in this state,

it's a juicy, glazy fried chicken sandwich.

Okay.

Positives of the sandwich are that,

first of all, really great flavor.

Two, it's fast, you can go from,

you know, pulling raw chicken out of the fridge

to eating the sandwich in under an hour,

and that's really, really different

from most other fried chicken preparations, full stop.

Overall, really good first day.

A little bit more to go. [air whooshes]

I woke up early, and I was tossing and turning,

and I was just thinking about the fact that it feels like

even though it's not a lot of effort,

creating this batter that is getting us

to this wonderful shaggy-craggy place,

is that creating the best possible chicken experience

for the application of a sandwich?

I suddenly had the thought, like,

what if instead of making a batter,

if we were to consider a dry dredge

for our final step pre-fry,

what if the vodka was the wash?

What would that mean?

That's kind of what I want to explore.

New day, new me, same chicken, let's go.

The dry rub is gonna remain unchanged,

a seasoned dry dredge today rather than a batter,

but with the caveat that I'm using vodka as the wash.

Instead of cornstarch, I'm gonna try potato starch.

My hope is that the potato starch will get even crispier

than the cornstarch dip.

Double down on my seasonings,

and then I'm gonna do sesame seeds.

Sesame seeds are gonna bring crunch as well as flavor.

I'm making the gochujang glaze mostly the same as yesterday.

I'm also gonna add some toasted sesame oil

just to double down on some sesame flavor.

Today, I'm going back to a skin-on, boneless version

just to see if I can get that skin really crisp

within the dry coating.

So we're gonna do that technique

of pressing the chicken into the starch

before it goes into the vodka wash.

Feels a little crazy.

Does it seem crazy?

'Cause it feels a little crazy on this side.

This is fun.

I think the vodka wash might have just taken

that potato starch right off,

but I don't know, maybe we had some clingage.

So here is our chicken we just fried.

It's not quite as, like, crunchy-crispy

as I was expecting/hoping it to be,

but there's a delicateness to the crispiness,

and there's a really great sensation

of having these kind of craggy bits adhering to the chicken.

I'm barely getting the sesame seeds.

I'm certainly not mad that they're there,

and I think, you know, that plus the toasted sesame

and the glaze is gonna be pretty interesting.

So I'm gonna do two pieces this time,

mainly just 'cause I wanna see

if a bigger piece is able to just fry longer

and get crispier still.

I'm not gonna do the potato starch pre-coating

before doing the wash this time.

I don't think it's staying on

in enough quantity to make it worthwhile.

Oh yeah, punching up the seasoning really made a difference.

I kind of dig the fact

that it's like a little bit KFC

but with something else going on.

And so the bigger one went an extra minute,

and it's holding up nicely.

But we lost some adhesion, chicken to dredge there,

and the chicken wants to kind of shrink, bind up.

I mean, flavor is great.

The glaze is, like, bright,

it's sweet, it's hot,

but it invites another bite.

It's just really warm, lovely balance.

The glaze is good to go.

I just wanna push the texture

of the chicken a little bit further.

So this time, we're gonna do thigh and breast.

So I'm gonna do an egg.

It could be part of what really helps bind chicken

and dredge.

Ultimately, it's the dredge that's getting crispy, right?

So the more you can get on there,

the crispier the sensation you're gonna get.

I'm also just really curious about what happens

when alcohol and egg comes into contact with each other.

Is it gonna, like, cook it over time?

Or is it gonna be all right? I don't know.

I have boneless, skinless chicken breast.

So I got inspired by this technique

that I saw from David Shim where he takes a short rib

and he scores it very deeply

as a way of increasing the surface area

to absorb a marinade.

And it got me thinking about

how could you take a chicken breast

and kind of do the same thing

and kind of open it up

so that you get more surface area

to get better coating of your dry rub.

So I'm gonna season both of these.

So the egg's gonna wanna bind to the starch

and then the flour's gonna wanna bind to the egg.

And away we shall go.

[lighthearted music]

Definitely got good crisp on both.

The egg is grabbing incrementally more

of both the potato starch that is on the chicken itself

and on the dredge,

which is ultimately on top of it.

For all the things happening here,

the drama of all the interventions we did

to kinda get to this point

I don't think are being validated

by a superior chicken experience.

I'm primed to prefer the boneless, skinless chicken thigh

just because I think it is by far the easiest option.

This is the crispiness I want in a piece of chicken,

especially if it's going into a sandwich

and gonna get coated with a sauce.

This is our one,

boneless, skinless chicken thigh.

Good adhesion, great flavor,

and just a little bit more bite to that dredge.

It's fried chicken as you know it

but with a twist.

I'm feeling really positive about this direction.

Compared to yesterday, this is more foolproof,

and frankly it's cooked up crispier

and it's more delicious.

So, here we are.

I really appreciate how seasoned this chicken is,

just like it's very delicious on its own.

I feel like the gochujang glaze,

it's a little,

I don't know that I want

toasted sesame oil. No? Too much?

It's kind of bringing down- Interesting.

The flavor, where it's like bright and spicy,

I want a little sweetness.

I am wondering, like,

how to sort of finish things off.

It can be as simple as a punched-up mayo swipe

or maybe it's like a yogurt zhuzh.

I don't know.

Yeah, I'm still thinking through that one.

Yeah. Now that I feel

pretty good about the chicken treatment

and about the glaze,

I'm gonna get the chicken set up in the dry rub

and let it sit for about 20 minutes

just so it can absorb a little bit more flavor.

Same dredge as last time.

I'm using proportionately less vodka

just as a way to thin the egg out

so it doesn't form a puffy, bready coating.

Glaze, I am gonna try taking out the toasted sesame oil.

Hana really didn't seem to be a big fan of it.

While that's resting,

I'm gonna work on my other condiment.

And I'm thinking I want ultimate simplicity here.

What if it's as simple as mixing some mayonnaise

with the bread and butter pickle brine.

So it's sweet, little tangy,

but not thinning it out to the point

that it's gonna wanna get super runny.

But it's just not quite giving me the sharpness that I want.

'Cause I've already used rice vinegar once in the recipe,

I'm gonna try that next.

I also think some of the dill in there could be really fun.

I like that.

Just punchy enough, but it's creamy. Feel good.

First, we're going into the potato starch,

do the egg wash, dredge.

I've been taking a quiet gauge on the timing

of the frying process,

and we're kind of netting out around six minutes.

I mean, right off the bat,

there is color, there is crunch,

I'm loving the sesame seeds on there.

Yet again, you know, I just feel very gratified

by the fact that we chose a simpler approach

that also managed to feel better

for the application we are putting this food through.

Done.

Overall look screams fried chicken sandwich.

Something crispy, something saucy, something crunchy,

and it's on two pieces of bread.

All right, Hana.

It looks beautiful!

I would pay money for this, I think.

[both laughing]

The flavor's very good.

The chicken is so juicy.

I'm so happy with that.

Is it just mayo?

Is it flavored with anything? It's mayo

with a little bit- Dill?

Of the rice vin and dill.

Oh my God. I'm like, what is that?

I thought it was just extra fragrant pickles.

Fun, the dill is really coming through.

The bite overall feels very balanced

in terms of fresh elements, cooling elements,

a little bit of heat,

but not really that much.

And I think whoever is looking

for a fried chicken sandwich,

whether it's something closer to like a classic style

or something more adventurous,

like, they'll be happy with this.

Hmm. I really like this.

And honestly, the fact that we were able

to do this in an hour,

like, I'm just in such a different place

than I was yesterday.

I feel like we ended up in a great spot.

It's very rarely a waste of time to go through the exercise

of trying multiple versions of something.

That just adds to your bank of knowledge

of how certain ingredients and techniques are gonna interact

and pay off in one way or the other.

And that's like the real value.

It's being able to say,

Hey, I tried all these different versions

and this one really represents, like,

the best possible payoff.

You can find the recipe in the description below.

I hope you make it. Let me know how it goes.

Do you know about my other million-dollar idea?

No. Pasta that's got the ridges

on the inside and out.

That's good! Yeah.

Rigatissimo? We could go somewhere with this.