Fried chicken is the ultimate comfort food. Whether you picked it up at the supermarket, made it at home (start a free trial to try our Ultimate Crispy Fried Chicken recipe), or grabbed it from KFC, it doesn’t matter; all that matters is that you have it on your plate. But what about if you want to level up your fried chicken?
There are some purists who love their chicken plain, and others who love it dunked in the sauce of their choosing. What if I told you that you can make a bold sauce with two pantry ingredients? Oh, and it can be ready in less than 2 minutes.
You can level up your chicken with this simple hot honey from our book, The Chicken Bible. It uses only two ingredients: ¾ cup of honey and 2 tablespoons of hot sauce. It seemed like it would be the perfect combination of sweet and spicy, so I tried it myself. Here’s what you need to do.
- Once you’ve secured your fried chicken of choice, combine the honey and hot sauce in a large bowl and microwave until hot, about 90 seconds.
- Add your fried chicken pieces to the bowl one at a time to coat. If you go this route, place it on a wire rack, skin side up, to drain before serving. Or just dip the chicken directly into the hot honey.
This sauce really elevated each bite of my chicken. It was sweet, spicy, and savory, which in my opinion is a marriage of perfect contrasts. I used Frank’s RedHot on the first attempt but was curious how other hot sauces would taste. I tried it again with sriracha and Tabasco and had different, but just as excellent, results. Sriracha made the sauce a little more punchy, and Tabasco added more peppery notes.
Hot honey is my new favorite thing to complement fried chicken, and I may just start carrying a bottle of it around with me, just in case.
