Country Fried Chicken

Serve this delicious Country Fried Chicken with your favorite sides for dinner this week or this weekend. This is a family favorite!

My kids love chicken tenders.  Of course they like to eat them at restaurants, and while it’s nice for someone else to cook, it is often expensive to feed three kids chicken tender baskets when going out to eat. 

I decided to try the next best thing and make them at home. 

I used chicken thighs because I prefer the taste and moisture of dark meat chicken.  For this recipe, I did not cut the thighs to resemble chicken tenders or nuggets, but if you’d like you can also cut the chicken into smaller pieces. 

You can also use boneless skinless breasts, or even use this recipe for bone in chicken to make the classic fried chicken. 

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For the adults, you can serve the country fried chicken with vegetables for a great Sunday meal, or you can place the fried chicken on a bun with lettuce and tomato for an easy chicken sandwich. 

As you can see, this is a very versatile recipe. Moreover, it is a pleaser for the entire family, and it is a huge money saver.

The very best part of this dish though was that after I fed the first few pieces to my wife and kids they wanted more! I was able to make a delicious restaurant quality dish for my entire family for a fraction of the cost.

This is also a great dish for parties.  I love to watch any sporting event, and with the big game on the horizon, this is a great way to make crowd pleasing food for lots of people for not a lot of money. 

Finally, even if you make too much, the leftovers are just as good the next day, and this dish makes a great food that you can toss into your kiddos lunchbox on Monday morning.

Country Fried Chicken

Ingredients:

• boneless skinless chicken thighs
• half gallon of buttermilk
• hot sauce
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 egg
• 2 quarts cooking oil

Directions:

In a large bowl, add all chicken.

Pour enough buttermilk to cover the chicken.

Add liberal dashes of your favorite hot sauce. 

Mix well to coat chicken with buttermilk and hot sauce mix and if able have all chicken submerged. 

Marinate for at least 4 hours covered in a refrigerator.

Pre-heat 2 quarts of cooking oil to 350 degrees in a deep frying pot to avoid splatter.

While oil is heating, mix flour and spices together well. 

Remove chicken, and coat each piece with the flour mixture. 

Once the oil is up to temperature, gently place each chicken piece in the hot oil. 

Only fry 2 pieces of chicken at a time to ensure even cooking, and to keep the oil temperature at 350. 

After 4-5 minutes, flip each piece of chicken to ensure even cooking. 

After another 4-5 minutes, the chicken should be golden brown and crispy. 

Remove the chicken and let cool. Serve with one of my yummy side dishes!