Chef John’s Nashville Hot Chicken

  4.6 – 72 reviews  • Fried Chicken Recipes

Even when you’re eating these oats for breakfast, they’re still good for you. The ingredients for this vegan breakfast are rolled oats, banana, and almond milk. They are blended together, then baked in the oven. For varied flavors, you can omit the cocoa powder and substitute any nut butter or fruit you like.

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 16 mins
Additional Time: 2 hrs 24 mins
Total Time: 3 hrs
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  1. 1 whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
  2. 1 cup buttermilk
  3. ¼ cup pickle brine
  4. 2 tablespoons Louisiana-style hot sauce
  5. 1 large egg
  6. 2 cups all-purpose flour
  7. 2 teaspoons fine table salt
  8. ¼ cup butter
  9. ¼ cup lard
  10. 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
  11. 1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
  12. 1 teaspoon paprika
  13. ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  14. ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  15. ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  16. 1 cup vegetable oil for frying, or as needed

Instructions

  1. Arrange chicken pieces in a large bowl.
  2. Whisk buttermilk, pickle brine, hot sauce, and egg together in a mixing bowl. Pour marinade over chicken and stir to ensure each piece is thoroughly coated. Cover and let chicken marinate in refrigerator 2 to 4 hours.
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  4. Mix flour and salt together in a shallow flat dish. Remove chicken from marinade and blot with paper towels. Reserve marinade. Toss chicken in flour until thoroughly coated. Return chicken to marinade, coating all sides; remove chicken from marinade allowing excess to drip back into the bowl. Coat the chicken once again in flour mixture. Place on a rack. Repeat with all chicken pieces. Allow to sit out about 15 minutes to allow coating to dry out a bit.
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  6. Place butter and lard in a large pot. Add cayenne pepper, brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, kosher salt, and black pepper. Place over medium-high heat. Cook and stir until fats melt. Remove from heat; keep sauce warm.
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  8. Fill cast iron skillet about 1/3 of the way with vegetable oil. Heat oil to 350 degrees F over medium-high heat. Carefully place chicken into hot oil, skin side down. Maintain an oil temperature of 325 degrees F, adjusting heat as need. Fry until instant read thermometer reads 160 degrees F, 8 to 10 minutes per side.
  9. Transfer chicken to a rack to drain. Brush with the sauce on both sides.
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  11. Enjoy!
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  13. For best results, Chef John recommends tossing the chicken pieces with 1 tablespoon kosher salt in a bowl; cover and refrigerate overnight.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 1115 kcal
Carbohydrate 75 g
Cholesterol 258 mg
Dietary Fiber 3 g
Protein 54 g
Saturated Fat 23 g
Sodium 3755 mg
Sugars 7 g
Fat 66 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Justin Owens
Very good,however the sauce separated. But once is cooled down and congealed I was able to get it on the chicken better.
Nicholas Peters
I like it, but it seems like there should be a touch of acid somewhere, like a little vinegar or citrus?
Pamela Dalton
Loved the recipe. I adapted it to be vegan with seitan and milk/fat substitutes, and it still created a wonderfully crispy breading. My only dislike was that I thought the sauce could use some tweaking to really hit a Nashville Hot level of spice and flavor.
Melanie Villarreal
Okay , but skip the lard , skip the sugar and add One tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and Three tablespoons of Frank’s Red Hot and call it Buffalo Chicken ( skip the pickles entirely) … remember , every winning team in the NFL has “Buffalo Wings “ on the training table …you’ll win with your family & friends with Buffalo Chicken !!!
Kelli Peters
Great Flavor. I did add two tablespoons of honey along with some chipotle and ancho chili powders. Along with two tablespoons of smoked paprika for depth. it was awesome! serviced with pickled onions, pickles, and some garlic aioli on a Hawaiian slider roll!
Sophia Allen
Chef John, love your recipes! For the folks who had trouble with the sauce breaking, you can substitute honey for the brown sugar or even corn syrup in a pinch. I found that heating the sauce very gently prevented it from breaking.
Lisa Daniels
Didn’t use lard.. all butter. Topped on a homemade waffle. Yum!
Connie Patterson
Loves this recipe. Have made it many times. I add fresh garlic to the oil and let simmer on a very low heat for 45 minutes to a hour.
Gregory Perez
This hands down is the best nashville hot sauce recipe you can get your hands on. Im still in disbelief on how good it is. So simple but unbelievably good I added a pinch extra of table salt but then again I am a salt guy. I’m excited to make this for someone.
Mark Briggs
Shatteringly crisp skin and moist delicious meat! A huge hit!
Anthony Vega
We love this recipe at our house. After making it several times I added 1tsp. Knorr chicken boullion and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard to the spices in the oil. Perfection! If we are on a time crunch we’ve even cheated and bought Raising Kanes chicken stips and just made the seasoned oil mix and dipped the whole strips in there. It’s great too all though not exact a good quick meal for a week night.
Daniel Bright
Great recipe. I don’t like deep fat frying so when I got to the last step I substituted panko bread crumbs mixed with oil for the second flour dredge and then put them on a rack on a baking sheet and put them on an upper oven rack and cooked at 400 degrees using the convection roast setting so the broiler element would cycle on as well as the bottom element. They were done in about 25 minutes and lightly browned on top, but no browning on the bottom. Next time I will use the broiler setting briefly and flip them over to brown both sides.
Scott Simmons
It’s sooo good ! My son’s favorite. This was our second time and it’s better each time .
Andrea Velasquez
Just used the sauce recipe to make sandwiches. I had bought fried chicken already. Absolutely delish! Spice builds as you eat it. Perfect with barefoot contessa’s Mephis coleslaw
Katrina Romero
thank you very much it’s very good but the sauceis separates
William Rice
So good! I seasoned the flour to add extra flavor and didn’t use lard for the sauce-just butter. I also added hot honey to the sauce and it was sooo good! 10/10 recommend. I may try to make the recipe into a chicken sandwich with pickles
Charles Walker
This recipe is a good one. The best I’ve found on this site so far. Not quite hot enough and who’s to say if it’s the recipe’s fault or my own, but it wasn’t as great as I hoped. Still worth trying if you’re looking to make some Nashville chicken.
Toni Daniels
Delish!!!! Sweet heat!!!!
Nicholas Barnes
The best fried chicken I’ve ever made. The pickle juice in the marinade is sublime ??
Arthur Gomez
This was the best fried chicken I’ve ever had! Great flavor, super moist, and finger licking good! It’s really not as spicy as I expected and in a good way!
Michelle Bennett
Mine didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped… I followed the directions to the letter. I had to borrow my parent’s fryer for the last step. It burned pretty much immediately. I don’t blame the recipe– I blame the old fryer I had to literally hold in place. Thank God it had a lid, so I wasn’t burned. The chicken tasted good, though. And I don’t fault the recipe for my failure as a chef. I fault the old fryer .

 

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