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📍 Tennessee

Nashville hot chicken

· Lunch

Fried chicken drenched in a fiery cayenne-and-hot-oil paste, served over white bread with pickles.

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Nashville hot chicken: Fried chicken drenched in a fiery cayenne-and-hot-oil paste, served over white bread with pickles.
Photo: Myspiritanimalisamanatee · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsPhoto resized, converted to WebP and cropped for display.
⏱ 170 min🍽 4 servings📊 Intermediate🏷 Commonly associated
Preparation
30 min
Cooking
20 min
Waiting and resting
120 min

History

As the legend goes, it emerged in Nashville in the 1930s when Thornton Prince's girlfriend served him pepper-loaded chicken as revenge; he loved it, and the family perfected the recipe. Prince's Hot Chicken Shack, considered the birthplace of the dish and a pioneering Black-owned business, made it popular, and the city's festival brought it fame in the 2000s.

Ingredients

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Only numeric quantities at the start of an ingredient are adjusted. Descriptive quantities, seasoning to taste and timings remain unchanged; check them when changing servings.

Preparation

  1. 1

    Marinate the chicken in the buttermilk with salt for at least 2 hours or overnight.

  2. 2

    Beat the egg with a little buttermilk; dredge each piece in seasoned flour, then the wet mixture, and again in flour.

  3. 3

    Fry in oil at 165 °C until golden and cooked through; drain.

  4. 4

    Mix the cayenne, paprika, sugar, and salt with the 1/2 cup of hot frying oil to form a paste.

  5. 5

    Brush the chicken generously with the fiery paste.

  6. 6

    Serve over white bread with pickles on top.

Cooking tips

  • Check 74 °C near but not touching the bone; if the outside browns too fast, finish in an oven at 180 °C.

References to consult

References provide information about the dish, its context or a technique. Quantities in this version may differ from those in the source.

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