The weather’s warming up and so is this weeks recipe! Spice lovers rejoice because this week we’re giving you a Nashville hot fried chicken recipe that is sure to satisfy your need for heat, and it’s made with Halal chicken. What more could you want? But if you’re looking for a fried chicken recipe and could take or leave the heat, this recipe can still be for you with a few ways to make it your own, so let’s take a look.

Starting with the chicken, we used both Halal drumsticks and drumettes for this recipe, so we had a mix of smaller more traditional fried chicken wings and larger whole chicken drumsticks, because Nashville loves its hot chicken and if you’re going to make it yourself, sometimes you have to do it big. The breading is a simple but effective mix of the usual suspects you’d see for fried chicken, some egg, milk, and flour, but with the special addition of some Louisiana hot sauce, enough to add just a little extra kick. This hot sauce isn’t the main heat component of this recipe though, the real heat is in the sauce we'll coat the cooked chicken with.

This recipe also calls for the chicken to be double dipped in the flour mix with a dunk in the egg mix in between and this gives the chicken a nice even coat of breading that won’t fall off while cooking. Also, because we use a flour mix and not breadcrumbs, the breading isn’t too thick in the finished product but still has the same delightful crispiness that makes eating fried chicken so satisfying. After the chicken is fried, golden brown, and deliciously crispy it will still need a quick trip to the oven to bake and ensure that it’s all cooked through entirely, but that will give you the opportunity to make the most important part of any spicy chicken recipe, the hot sauce.

First things first, this is a pretty strong hot sauce thanks to the amount of cayenne pepper used to make it. This is an opportunity for you to adjust your own recipe accordingly and use more or less cayenne depending on your spice tolerance. Otherwise, it’s a simple blend of just a few spices and some of the still warm cooking oil you use for the chicken. Mix those until fully incorporated and everything is smooth and blended. After the chicken comes out of the oven, evenly coating each piece in the sauce while the chicken’s still hot will keep the breading from getting soggy, so you’ll still have a crispy, flavorful, and very spicy Nashville favorite!

And that’s all you need, if you’re looking for a recipe with some heat then you’ve definitely found it here. The true Nashville experience serves this with white bread and pickle slices, so try this out for yourself and let us know what you think, otherwise share this with a fellow spice lover and stay tuned for next weeks recipe. Until then, enjoy!