Nashville Hot Chicken And Waffles
NASHVILLE HOT CHICKEN WITH MAPLE WAFFLES
We’re nearing football season, and there are always so many different table foods to eat in this festive Fall time. Tailgating food is a true passion for most sport enthusiasts, and this recipe is about to take your game up a notch.
Heinen’s provides you with ready to heat up maple waffles that are individually wrapped for each person to enjoy with their hot chicken.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe:
You’ll only need to make the Nashville Hot Sauce and fry the chicken breasts! The maple waffles are already waiting for you. Once you’ve made the delicious, light and airy batter, it will only take about 30-45 minutes total.
There’s a sweet and savory (spicy!) ratio to this recipe that is oh-so-nice. You have all of the control of how much cayenne (the spice) pepper goes into the sauce. And the maple in the waffles give a nice compliment to the brown sugar and spice in the sauce that slathers the chicken.
There’s the option of eating them as an open face waffle sandwich, a regular two-waffle sandwich and the best part is you can skewer them for presentation and even distributing to tailgaters or party-goers so they can enjoy on-the-go. I’m not claiming they’re the neatest food to eat — but they’re absolutely delicious.
The chicken breasts at Heinen’s are of the best quality, and you’ll find with that with Gerber chicken breast cuts. I tend to cut these in half of even thirds before I season and batter them, which makes assembly after fried all the more easy.
HOT SAUCE AND CHICKEN RECIPE
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 | Serving Size: 8-10 skewers/waffle bites
Nashville Hot Sauce Ingredients
8 tbsp butter, (1 stick)
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp light brown sugar
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp white vinegar
Chicken Batter Ingredients
Snackin’ Butter Maple Waffles from Heinen’s (6 per box)
4-6 chicken breasts (pound them if too thick, and cut into halves or thirds if too large)
canola oil for frying (about 2 inches deep in pot)
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp Two Brothers Sweet and Smokey Seasoning
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup seltzer water
Instructions
Have the Snackin’ butter maple waffles ready to bake in oven (the box offers different ways to heat them). As an optional topper, we used bread and butter flavored pickles.
Prepare the sauce right before you start frying. Put the butter in a medium sauce pot, and set heat to low simmer. Once melted, add in the rest of the sauce ingredients. Mix around with soft whisk until fully mixed together. Turn off heat until after the chicken is fried in a separate frying pan. Set the sauce aside for when you have to reheat it.
Start heating your canola oil in a medium pot. While that’s heating to fry temperature, start the batter.
Mix the dry ingredients for the batter first in a dredging bowl. Add In the seltzer and stir until fully combined and no bubbles. Should be relatively thick.
Set aside near the frying oil so you can do easy transfers. Also have a baking tray with rack in it to place the fried chicken in to drain when done.
Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper to your liking.
One by one, dip each chicken cut when the oil is ready, and fry no more than 3 at a time.
Fry the chicken for about 3-4 minutes on each side or until 165°F internal temperature is reached, and remove to sit on baking tray rack. Do this for all your chicken.
When you’re about to finish frying all of your chicken, start to simmer the sauce again and use whisk to vigorously stir it until it recombines to it’s cooked, thinner state. While you’re doing that, pop those waffles in the oven, or however you plan on cooking them.
Transfer to a big bowl, and dip your chicken pieces into the bowl to coat fully. Place them back on the rack so that extra sauce can drip down to the tray.
Begin to assemble your skewers or sandwiches how you like. We add some bread and butter pickles to top ours! Enjoy!
