This is not an exaggeration, this fried chicken is the best I have ever made. Really, it is the best chicken I have ever eaten. So, obviously this chicken is amazing. What is one of the biggest things people struggle with when making fried chicken? Honestly, trying to figure out whether the chicken is cooked all the way through while trying to keep the breading from getting too dark. That is, by far, the most asked question, and with this technique, you will never ask it again.

The secret to quality fried chicken, without the guessing is to cook it before hand. How, you may ask. We are going to use an immersion circulator to cook the chicken completely through, bread it, then fry it to a nice and crispy, golden brown. I know a lot of you are rolling your eyes, and my grand mother would smack me silly if I ever suggested it, but this will help you produce some of the best fried chicken you can make.

Start by heating up your circulator to 155 F. Then you can buy a whole chicken and break it down, I’ve included a link below to an earlier post describing how to do this. I will also be uploading a video as soon as I figure out my video editing software. Or, you can purchase your favorite chicken pieces. I am a huge fan of dark meat, while “M” and the kids are white meat only people. I choose to break down the whole bird and make chicken stock with the bones.

Whole Chicken Break Down

After breaking down the bird you will need to vacuum seal the breasts together, and the legs and thighs together. Add a tablespoon of salt to each bag prior to sealing the bag. This will brine the meat while it is cooking. The dark meat will take longer than the white, so we need to submerge that and set a timer for 2 hours. After the two hours, you add the breasts for another hour. The dark meat will need to cook for a total of three hours, and the white meat only for an hour.

With about 30 minutes left in cook time, we need to prepare the breading station. This will not be a typical breading station, we aren’t going to be using eggs or bread crumbs/panko. We will be using buttermilk and seasoned BREAD flour. The bread flour will make sure the chicken stays crisp and not oily and soggy.

Mix the flour, spices, salt, and pepper together and get your buttermilk ready in a container. Also, preheat your deep fryer or a large pot of oil to 400 F. Once the chicken is done, remove from the sous vide water. Open the bags and remove the chicken from the bag, pat dry with some paper towels. If your chicken breasts are thick, like mine were, you may want to cut them in half lengthwise to make them more of a manageable portion. From this point, all you need to do is bread the chicken.

Fried Chicken

Sous vide fried chicken

4.80 from 5 votes

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Prep Time 15

Cook Time 3 30

Course Breakfast, Main Course

Cuisine American

Servings 6 people

Equipment

Immersion circulator
Vacuum sealer
Vacuum seal bags

Ingredients

1 chicken broken down into portions
2 tbsp salt
2 cups bread flour
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp black pepper
2 cups buttermilk

Instructions

Break down chicken into breasts, legs, and thighs. Save or discard bones. Heat immersion circulator to 155 F.
Separate meat into white meat and dark meat. Place all dark meat in a vacuum bag, and place all white meat in a separate vacuum bag.
Season each bag with one tablespoon of salt, then vacuum seal.
Submerge dark meat chicken in circulator water for 2 hours. After two hours, add white meat chicken for another 1 hour.
After cook time, remove from water, then remove from bag. Pat dry with paper towel.
Mix all spices and flour in container and mix well. Pour buttermilk into a different container.
Preheat deep fryer to 400 F.
Coat chicken in flour. Submerge in buttermilk and coat thoroughly. Finish with another coat of seasoned flour.
Fry in batches until golden brown and crispy.
Remove from fryer and allow to drain on a wire rack. Serve immediately. Enjoy!

Keyword fried chicken

To bread this chicken, you will coat the chicken in the seasoned flour, move to the butter milk. Coat the chicken with the buttermilk, and then back into the seasoned flour. Make sure the chicken is thoroughly coated. You will then need to fry the chicken in batches, make sure you do not over fill the fryer. There is no need to ask yourself when the chicken is cooked, all you need to do is fry until golden brown. Remove from the fryer and place on a wire rack to allow to cool for a minute or two. Serve immediately.

Yes, this post was spoke of chicken and waffles, but the chicken was so good that I am going to make sure that most of this post is about that. If you want to continue on with the waffles that will be short and sweet.

For the waffles, I used a basic pancake mix you would buy at your local market. They generally have a waffle recipe on the back of the box/bag. The main addition to the dish is the hot sauce aioli. To make this aioli, add your egg yolks and hot sauce (I used Frank’s Redhot) to your food processor or a mixing bowl. The hot sauce will act as the acid in the aioli and help it to emulsify. While mixing, slowly add in your oil until the consistency of mayonnaise. Put into a squeeze bottle for easy distribution. Top with good maple syrup, and garnish with green onions and candied pecans.