Want to learn how to cook crispy chicken like a pro? As chicken experts, La Rosa Chicken and Grill has a few tricks up our sleeves. When we hear that chicken is dry, boring or bland, we know that it has been cooked wrong! Cooked right, chicken makes a delicious and healthy meal that you’ll want to add to your weekly menu.
Today we’re going to focus on cooking crispy chicken and some tips and tricks for making it the best ever. Whether you choose to share these tips is your choice. No one has to know your secrets!
Many people start with a full chicken and then break it apart. This might work for some families, but more often than not, we find that there are certain pieces everyone wants. Chicken breasts, for example, have a longer cook time and tend to dry out. We recommend skipping past them and going straight for the drumsticks and thighs.
If you don’t have time to brine the chicken the night before that’s okay. You really only need about 30 minutes at room temperature. If you brine the chicken overnight, keep it in the fridge. And you only have to do a dry salt brine - it’s quick and easy. Salting the chicken keeps it moist and flavorful and helps tenderize it.
Don’t hold back on the spices when cooking any type of chicken - fried included! We recommend mixing up the spices while your chicken is sitting salted and then adding half the mixture to the chicken and half to the flour. If you don’t have anything that comes to mind, check out some of our favorite spices for chicken here.
Once you dip the chicken in flour and eggs or a milk wash, you should fry it immediately. If the chicken is left to sit, the breading will get soft and the chicken won’t get crispy. We also suggest using a deep fryer, Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot so that you can deep fry the chicken. Simply heat the oil to 350 degrees and cook each piece for about 12 minutes.
This step might sound strange, but it allows the skin to crisp up without drying out. Place the chicken in the oven and set it to 175 degrees for about 20 minutes. The chicken will be kept warm and the skin will turn crispier. This is a trick some chicken restaurants use to get the extra crispy layer that everyone loves.
We hope you find these five tips useful. Cooking crispy chicken at home might not give you the same results as the restaurants because you’re not using the same industrial-grade appliances. But you can definitely pull off something close - and made to your taste as well. For freshly prepared fried chicken, stop in to La Rosa Chicken and Grill today.