I love this Tennessee Hot Fried Chicken recipe! With a crunchy skin and spicy flavor throughout, you won’t be able to get enough!
Regular Fried Chicken will never be the same.
My man loves fried chicken.
That is one of his favorite foods that he loves. Furthermore, he loves MY fried chicken, which is really interesting because I am not a huge fryer person. It is rare that you will catch me frying anything, but I will do it for him occasionally. Anything I make regularly I like to try to find ways to improve it or make it different and that is what I did with this fried chicken. I get copies of Food & Wine and Bon Apetite and when I get these magazines I sit for about an hour to read through everything. Getting my food and cookbook magazines are the highlights of my day. In any case, I was looking through my Bon Appetit magazine and I came across this recipe for Tennessee Fried Chicken. Now it immediately got my attention, not because of the recipe but because I have started to see this recipe all over the place. I saw a recipe for Tennessee Hot Fried Chicken in Food & Wine magazine, Food Network magazine, and another publication AND I saw it on a TV show on the Food Network Channel. So I knew I had to give it a shot.
So what’s the verdict?
I love this Tennessee Hot Fried Chicken recipe!! I love the spice and I love the flavor. One thing I did that is a little different from the recipe was I marinated my chicken for HOURS in buttermilk! Who knew, right? Buttermilk makes the chicken very moist and tender. Another way I deviated from the original recipe was instead of making a salty hot sauce brine was I coated and marinated my chicken, also, with hot sauce without adding more salt. I was afraid it was going to be too salty. Another unique technique I did was drizzled the chicken with a little honey to give it a little sweetness to go along with the salt and spice from the chicken. But you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.
With all the changes I made I liked it just fine the way I made it. It came out perfectly! I also made some Southern Collard Greens, Baked Mac and Cheese, and Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits. I was going to make a Fresh Peach Cobbler go along with the tradition of the dinner but he wanted me to make the Deep Dish Apple Pizza. He loves that dessert! Like, how does that dessert go along with what I got going on right now? He is so weird. Aside from that this meal was an awesome southern dinner.
* Recipe partially adapted from Bon-Apetite
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Tennessee Hot Fried Chicken
- Total Time: 50 mins
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
This Tennessee Hot Fried Chicken is amazing! It is deep fried until crispy and coated with a hot sauce and drizzled in honey to add some sweetness to the chicken.
Ingredients
- 1/2 gallon buttermilk
- kosher salt and pepper
- 12 oz. bottle of hot sauce
- 1/3 c. honey
- 1 3/12– 4lb chicken cut into 8 pieces (or 4 pounds of mixed chicken pieces. I used wings and drumsticks)
- Peanut or Vegetable oil for frying
- 2 c. flour
- 2 tbsp. cayenne pepper
- 2 tsp. smoked paprika
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- * Honey for drizzling
Instructions
- Lay the chicken out on a large cutting board or cleaned workspace. Liberally season the chicken with salt and pepper, front and back. Poke the chicken with a hole to allow the flavor to completely saturate the chicken. Place the chicken in a large
tupper ware container that will fit the chicken and pour the buttermilk over the chicken and place in the refrigerator overnight or at least, 8 hours. - Remove chicken from the refrigerator and pour out the buttermilk completely. Prepare the marinade by whisking the hot sauce and honey. Take the chicken and dip them into the hot sauce marinade and place the chicken back into the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.
- Using a large cast iron skillet or deep fryer, fill the pan or fryer with oil and allow the oil to reach 350 Degrees.
- Whisk together the flour, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, sugar, and black pepper. Dredge the chicken through the flour, and shake off excess flour and place in the hot oil. Allow the chicken to cook until golden brown (10-12 minutes for wings, 12-15 for thighs, legs, and breasts). Once the chicken is cooked completely, season with a little salt and pepper and transfer to
wire rack lined with paper towels. Drizzle with a little honey and allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving. If you want to sprinkle a little more hot sauce once finished you can if you want.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 40 mins
- Category: Dinner
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