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Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Sandwich (Chick-fil-A My Way )

Author: Cynthia

Ingredients

Brine

  • 1 lb thin sliced chicken breast (you can buy full size chicken breasts, slice them in half and pound them thin. Or you can take advantage of the fact that Mega Markets sell thin sliced chicken and save yourself a little work. Your choice. I know what I did 😉)
  • 1 cup dill pickle juice, right out of the jar. Nothing fancy, just buy plain old sliced dill pickles and use the juice.
  • 1 cup buttermilk. Mega Markets usually sell the low fat kind, and that's fine, but if you can get whole fat buttermilk it's even better. The thicker texture really holds the crust onto the chicken.
  • 2 tablespoon granulated sugar

Coating For the Chicken (Otherwise known as "The Dredge")

  • 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ cup cornstarch
  • 4 tablespoon powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon celery salt
  • 1 teaspoon paprika (sweet or smoked, whatever you have)
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoon powdered buttermilk (found in the baking aisle)
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • A few tablespoons of buttermilk, mixed into the finished dredge, giving it a slightly shaggy appearance

Everything Else You Need

  • 1 ½ cup vegetable oil for frying
  • Buns. Plain, sesame, brioche, whatever you like.
  • A little softened butter for toasting your buns
  • Good old fashioned dill pickle slices

Instructions

  • Combine the buttermilk, pickle juice, and sugar. Place the chicken breasts in a zip-top bag and pour the liquid over them. Press out as much air as possible and seal it up. Squish everything in the bag a little, so that all the chicken is submerged. Place in the refrigerator for at least one hour, up to four hours.
  • Mix together all your dry dredge ingredients, except the few tablespoons of buttermilk.
  • Sprinkle a few tablespoons, up to ¼ cup, of the liquid buttermilk over your dry dredge. Using a fork, mix together well. This should give you a nice "shaggy" kind of texture. Normally when you fry something, the first batch doesn't have as many crispy bits on the edges as later batches. Adding a little buttermilk now will give every batch of chicken the perfect amount of crispy bits.
  • Heat oil in cast iron pan or other tall sided frying pan to 350 degrees. Remove chicken from brine and shake it off so it's not dripping all over the place. Drag chicken through the dredge. Pack that flavor (and those soon-to-be crispy bits) firmly onto chicken, then shake off the excess.
  • Fry for 3-4 minutes per side or until nicely browned. These are thin cuts, so they won't take long to cook. Place on a wire rack to drain.
  • Serve on butter toasted hamburger buns with 3 pickles. Cry because it’s so delicious. Forget Chick-fil-A ever existed. Feel good about that. Nap.