The Ultimate Crispy Fried Chicken

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Appears in Cook's Illustrated May/June 2001, America's Test Kitchen TV

To solve the problem of dry and underseasoned fried chicken, we brined and then air-dried the chicken parts before frying.

SERVES 4 to 6

TIME 1¾ hours, plus 2 hours brining and 2 hours chilling

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WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

Our best fried chicken recipe would be worth the splatter and mess, producing seasoned meat coated with a crisp mahogany crust. We found that cutting up a whole chicken and brining it in a mixture of buttermilk, salt, and spices was the way...

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