Ingredients:
MSG:
Garlic Powder:
Onion Powder:
All-Purpose Flour
Cornstarch:
Nonfat Milk Powder:
Corn Flour
Baking Powder:
Vinegar Powder
Baking Soda
Paprika
Mustard Powder
White Pepper:
Dill pickle chips
Hellman’s Mayonnaise
Blue Plate Mayonnaise
Peanut Oil
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
method of making
And we’ll break down the precise ingredients and spices they use at the restaurant to make one of the greatest chicken sandwiches in history. Over the last several months, I’ve been working diligently behind the scenes to reverse-engineer this legendary sandwich. I watched every video on YouTube. I tested almost every recipe online. I tracked down their ingredient list, which isn’t publicly available. I even visited 14 different Popeyes restaurants to see if I could find any difference between each location. Which ended up being a complete waste of time because the sandwich tasted the same at all of them.
However, after about 60 different variations in my home kitchen, I think I am now closer than anyone has ever gotten to the original flavor of the Popeyes chicken sandwich.
And it all begins with their 3-step process. But before we break down these steps, we’ll need to section our chicken first. So, Popeyes uses boneless, skinless chicken breasts for their chicken sandwich. And even though they have a reputation for using much larger chicken pieces than other restaurants like Chick-fil-A, I’ve generally found their filets to weigh between 4-5 ounces. I even took my kitchen scale into Popeyes restaurants like a deranged lunatic so I could get a proper measurement for you all.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
To prepare the chicken breasts for the sandwich, we’ll start by turning them over and removing the tenderloin. You can use this as a chicken tender now or reserve it for another recipe.
Then let’s trim off the small tapered point at the bottom of the breast. This will make it much
easier for us to get uniform filets. Now, take your hand and place it on top of the chicken like this, and make a horizontal slice halfway through the breast. This should give us 2 evenly cut, uniform filets. Now, Popeyes sandwich filets are generally about ½-inch thick. In their training manual, they’re advised to press down on the filets with their knuckles during the first step of the breading process. They call this a ‘knuckle roll’ and it supposedly helps even the filets out and break down some of the fibers so the breasts won’t curl up during the frying step.
But at home, I’ve found a much more efficient way to achieve uniformity is to place the cut filets under plastic wrap and pound them with a meat mallet until the breasts are of an even thickness.
The next step is preparing the brine. One of the ways Popeyes gets such flavorful and juicy chicken is by injecting their filets with a seasoned solution of water, salt, and spices.
If you review Popeyes’ ingredient list, which is not publicly available, you can see they use a solution of water and seasoning for the chicken filets. So, one way to mimic this at home is to use a basic brine to season our filets all the way through.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
I experimented with a bunch of different ratios of salt and seasonings and found a simple 4.5% salt brine gets me the exact flavor I was tasting from the filets at the restaurant.
And a quick note: I’m using Morton’s plain table salt for this video. And for the MSG, which is an essential element to Popeyes flavor, you’ll be able to find it at most grocery stores under the name Accent. So, to make the brine, let’s add 1 tablespoon plus 1 ½ teaspoons of table salt to a large bowl. Then toss in 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons of white sugar; 1 tablespoon of MSG; 1 teaspoon of garlic powder and 1 teaspoon of onion powder.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
Then pour over approximately 1 liter of water and whisk until all the spices and seasonings are completely dissolved. Next, we’ll add the sectioned filets to the brine. I tested several different times and I consistently found that a 12-hour brine yielded the best results. You can go a little shorter or a little longer; but the 12-hour brine tasted closest to what I was getting from the restaurant.
And just make sure to refrigerate it the entire time.
The next ingredient is the most crucial component in achieving the true Popeyes flavor and texture. And this is the step that everyone online gets wrong.But before we get to that, I want to quickly thank today’s video sponsor, Factor.
Now, I spend almost all day, everyday cooking, developing recipes, and testing dishes. And sometimes I just don’t feel like spending the time shopping, prepping ingredients, cooking another dish, and then cleaning the entire kitchen. And that’s why I love Factor.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
So, for their wet batter, Popeyes uses a dry, pre-mixed blend of flour, spices, and seasonings they call “poultry batter.” Then they add water to this mixture to make a wet batter and use this as the second step of the breading process before frying the filets. It’s this wet batter, perhaps more than anything else, that gives the Popeyes chicken sandwich not only its flavor but that crispy, flaky, light texture. The poultry batter is technically a buttermilk and egg batter. But it uses all dry ingredients. The efficient thing about using all dried ingredients is that we can make big batches of this dry batter mix and store it for months. And when we’re ready to fry some chicken, you’ll just add water to the premade mixture like they do at the
restaurant. If we reference the official ingredient list, you’ll notice there are a handful of components you may not be familiar with.
So, let me give you a super quick rundown of some of the more obscure ingredients we’ll need to make the official Popeyes poultry batter. And a side note: you probably won’t be able to find most of these at your standard grocery store. So, I’ll include all the Amazon links in the video description. The first is whole egg powder. There are many reasons we add eggs to a batter. But it’s mainly to bind and emulsify all the other ingredients and to add structure, color, and flavor to the crust.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
The second is buttermilk powder. Buttermilk is the most classic flavor of Southern fried chicken. But using it in powdered form will help us achieve that flavor without introducing any additional moisture to the crust, so we can keep it as crispy as possible.
The third ingredient is vinegar powder. This acts in much the same way as the buttermilk powder. And it will help us boost that tangy flavor without adding any additional moisture to the crust.
Next, we’ll need corn flour.
And please note: this is different than cornstarch, even though the two names are used interchangeably in some recipes. This will provide more flavor than cornstarch because the whole kernel is used to make it. Corn flour is a great way to lighten a crust while making it more crispy because it has no gluten.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
And the last specialty ingredient we’ll need is nonfat milk powder. This is milk with all the liquid evaporated out. So, we get all the benefits of milk, which will help us with browning, texture, and flavor, without adding any additional liquid. And you can find it at most grocery stores on the baking aisle. Now, to make the poultry batter, let’s start by adding ¾ cup of all-purpose flour to a large bowl. Then toss in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, 3 tablespoons of whole egg powder, 2 tablespoons of buttermilk powder, 3 tablespoons of nonfat milk powder, 1 tablespoon of corn flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vinegar powder, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda, 1.5 teaspoons of table salt, ½ teaspoon of MSG, ¼ teaspoon of paprika, ¼ teaspoon of mustard powder, ¼ teaspoon of garlic powder, ¼ teaspoon of onion powder, ⅛ teaspoon of white pepper, and ¼ teaspoon of turmeric.
The turmeric is optional, and I believe they use artificial food coloring at the restaurant.
But it does help with the color. Then whisk everything gently until all the spices are evenly mixed. And we will reconstitute this with water to make it into a proper wet batter when we’re ready to fry the chicken. But until then, you can store the poultry batter dry mix in a covered container for several months.
And the final piece we’ll need for the dredge is the flour mixture. This is another element almost everyone online gets wrong. You’ll often see recipes adding all sorts of spices and seasonings to their flour mixture. But if we reference the official ingredient list, you can see the only components are flour, leavening agents, and salt. It’s a super simple, basic flour mixture.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
So, to begin, let’s start by adding 2 cups of all-purpose flour to a large bowl. Then add 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 tablespoon of table salt.
Then whisk the flour mixture until all the ingredients are well combined.
And you can store the flour mix in a covered container for several months.
Now, for the bread, Popeyes uses a brioche bun. But what brioche bun is closest to what they’re using at the restaurant? I tested pretty much all the most common brands available at your standard grocery store. And, to be completely honest with you, they’re all very similar.
But the one that tasted closest to the bread I got from Popeyes is the Artesano brioche bun from Sara Lee. And the great thing is that these should be available nearly everywhere.
To prepare the buns, you’ll just want to butter both sides and lightly toast them in a pan over medium heat until they’re browned on the bottom.
For the pickles, tasting the samples I got from the restaurant, they seem to be using some variety of dill pickle. I know they’re using a barrel-cured pickle from Chipco, as evidenced by this photo from Reddit. But the restaurant pickles seem to be less lightly pickled than the ones I’m able to get from the grocery store. And once again, I tested every brand I could find at the grocery stores near my house. And, none of them were very close in taste to the restaurant samples I picked up. But, the closest one I could find, bizarrely enough, was the Great Value brand from Walmart. It’s not perfect, but it’s closer in taste to Popeyes pickles than all of the more popular brands. But my advice is to just go with any sliced dill pickle and they’ll be relatively similar to what they’re using at the restaurant.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
And finally, for the mayonnaise, I got conflicting information from employees on the brand they use at the restaurant. Some people told me they saw Hellman’s mayonnaise at their location. And others told me they saw Blue Plate mayonnaise at their locations.
The problem I ran into while testing the samples I picked up from the restaurants against both Hellman’s and Blue Plate is that the restaurant mayonnaise was slightly sweeter than both. So, my recommendation is to pick up either Hellman’s or Blue Plate, and to add just a bit of sugar and whisk it into the mayonnaise before using. This little addition of sugar made both mayonnaises indistinguishable from the restaurant samples.
Now, when you’re ready to fry the chicken and make the sandwiches, let’s start by heating some neutral oil to 350°F. And Popeyes uses a beef-flavored shortening, as evidenced by this photo from Reddit. But beef-tallow-flavored anything is kind of expensive. So, I recommend using any neutral oil, like vegetable, canola, or peanut.
While our oil is heating, let’s reconstitute our poultry batter with a little less than 1 cup of cold water. Whisk the dry mixture until it’s homogenous and there are no dry spots left. You want the mixture to be thick, but not too thick. Think of a slightly more watery pancake batter. Next, we’ll drain the chicken from the brine and dry the filets off with paper towels. You want to dry them off as much as possible because any moisture will make it harder for the breading to adhere to the breasts.
Then we’ll set up our breading station with the filets, the flour, and the poultry batter.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
To prepare the filets, we’ll start by pressing each of them into the flour. Now shake off the excess and dip each filet into the poultry batter. Then lift them up and allow the excess batter to drip off. Now place the chicken back into the flour and toss it around about 10-20 times while pressing the flour into the filet. At the restaurant, they instruct them to toss the chicken around several times so they can get those craggy bits in the crust. Then take the filet, shake off the excess flour, place it into the fryer basket, and lower it into the hot oil.
And then you’ll just fry each filet for about 4-6 minutes. It’s kind of hard to tell you how long it’s going to take because it really depends on your
cooking vessel. But it’s generally around 4-6 minutes. When the filets are done, remove them to a wire rack or a baking sheet lined with paper towels to allow the oil to drain off.
Popeyes Fried Chicken Sandwich
When you’re making the sandwiches, we’ll start by adding our sweetened mayonnaise to the top and bottom buns. And then place 3 pickles on the bottom bun and top it with our fried chicken breast. And I guarantee you, this version of the Popeyes chicken sandwich is closer than anything that currently exists online.
Now, let’s give it a taste test and see how we’ve done.
Before I started the research on this video, I had never had a Popeyes chicken sandwich. But I really do think if it is made correctly, the hype is well-deserved.
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