Buttermilk Fried Chicken Recipe - TheFoodXP (2024)

FAQs

How long should you leave chicken in buttermilk? ›

Directions. Soak chicken in buttermilk with garlic, onions, herbs, paprika, and cayenne pepper. Refrigerate overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain in colander, leaving some herbs on chicken.

The secret to making the perfect fried chicken is the use of buttermilk, as it helps tenderize each piece while leaving each bite juicy and crispy. After marinating, dredge your chicken pieces in the flour mixture and get to frying!

If you like a thick crispy crust on your chicken, then go with the buttermilk. The buttermilk will tenderize the chicken to a small degree as well as impart some flavor upon the meat. Most importantly it will allow more flour to stick to the chicken, forming a thick crust that cooks up crisply.

Yes. Just like my buttermilk scones, you can easily swap heavy cream for buttermilk. You will want to add some vinegar to the heavy cream to “curdle” the milk and give it the acidic quality of buttermilk. For 1 cup of heavy cream add 1 tablespoon vinegar.

Whisk together buttermilk, mustard, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a bowl. Pour buttermilk marinade into a resealable plastic bag. Add chicken pieces, coat with marinade, squeeze out excess air, and seal the bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for 2 to 8 hours.

In my experience, chicken that is marinated for too long develops an unpleasant, mushy texture. Four or five hours is about the max for buttermilk. Other people don't mind if the meat gets a little soft, so an overnight marinade would work for them.

When marinating chicken in buttermilk, there's no need to rinse it before cooking. In fact, rinsing would wash away a lot of the flavor your just infused! Simply remove the chicken from the buttermilk and let the excess marinade drip off.

Place the breaded chicken on a cooling rack (or a platter) and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. This cooling time will help the layers of breading ingredients solidify and adhere better after the chicken cooks. Once you start cooking the chicken, be patient and don't flip it over too early.

You don't start dry

The first step to breading chicken is crucial: Make sure the chicken is completely dry before starting the dredging process. Using a paper towel, pat the meat dry on all sides. Excess moisture will cause the flour to get soggy, meaning it will not adhere properly to the chicken.

Do you dip chicken in flour or egg first? ›

You should always start with a layer of flour. This helps absorb moisture on the surface of the chicken, which would keep the breading from sticking and make a mess in the hot oil. The flour also gives the egg something to cling to—otherwise it would slide right off the chicken.

Canola Oil

Benefits: With a high smoke point and neutral flavor, canola oil is excellent for frying chicken. As an added bonus, it has high levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which makes it healthier than other options.

You can substitute half and half one for one for buttermilk, but you also need to add a tablespoon per cup of either lemon juice or vinegar to the recipe. This will add the extra tartness that buttermilk brings to a recipe, and will also provide acid to react with the baking powder or baking soda.

You can use half and half and regular milk instead. Can I use regular milk instead of buttermilk for fried chicken? If you don't have any buttermilk, regular milk can work in a pinch for your fried chicken recipe.

Replacing half-and-half with buttermilk is a little trickier. The tangy flavor of buttermilk is very different from milk or half-and-half. But the main difference is acidity. Buttermilk is high in acidity, and that can cause problems if you try to use it instead of half-and-half in baking.

Most recipes for marinating meat and poultry recommend six hours up to 24 hours. It is safe to keep the food in the marinade longer, but after two days it is possible that the marinade can start to break down the fibers of the meat, causing it to become mushy.

That said, the USDA site does not state that longer than 2 days is unsafe, rather that marinades, which tend to be acidic, begin to break down the protein after this point. That is a texture and preference issue rather than a safety issue. The recipe you link contains buttermilk (also acidic).

Twelve hours seems to be the right amount of time for the buttermilk to work its magic, so try to remember to get the thawing and marinade process going the day before you plan to cook. Simply rinse and drain the meat, dry and cook.

How long to marinate chicken in buttermilk? A minimum of 4 hours, a maximum of 24 hours. Personally I very rarely marinate the chicken for less than 12 hours. Some recipes suggest a minimum of 1 hour, but from experience you just don't get the same results.