These bite sized buttermilk popcorn chicken are super crispy and go amazingly with our sweet creamy honey sesame dip. Perfect for sharing as a snack or appetizer.
I got myself a deep fryer and now I am deep frying everything! I-mean-everything. Fries\donuts\cheese sticks\deep fried pickles\soon to be churros and yes we can’t forget the fried popcorn chicken. Probably not a very smart move on my part so close to Christmas time – a time where I tend to over indulge.
I think we had fried popcorn chicken almost every other day for the past 2 weeks in every possible form because I was so bent on making a fantastic fried popcorn chicken that I can call my own.
In the process of all my experimentation, I learned a few lessons myself.
- Lesson 1: Don’t set the oil temperature too low because it doesn’t cook fast enough and the batter just sucks up all the oil in the process.
Result : Soggy fried chicken. (Imagine biting into a sponge of oil. Yea gross, wouldn’t recommend it.) - Lesson 2: Don’t set your oil too hot it cooks the outside too fast.
Result : Cooked on the inside, raw chicken on the inside. - Lesson 3: Don’t over cook the chicken
Result : Dry chicken that would suck the moisture right out of your mouth and hard as rocks.
INGREDIENTS
For this crispy buttermilk popcorn chicken recipe, most of the ingredients are common ingredients that you should be able to find in a local supermarket.
Most crispy chicken recipes call for potato starch, but since this was a hard to find ingredient I opted for potato flour instead. I found this at my local bulk ingredient store but I have seen this at my local grocery store as well.
Potato starch and potato flour are slightly different. Potato starch is a more white colour and a finer texture (like corn starch), potato flour has a slight pale colour to it and is fine as well but not as fine as the starch.
If you can find potato starch, use that instead of potato flour! It will create an even crispier chicken. If you can’t find potato starch or potato flour, you can substitute it with corn starch but the results won’t be as crispy but that’s okay because potato flour is more flavourful.
I prefer to use peanut oil however peanut oil may be hard to find, there are a lot of allergies around it and sometimes it can be quite pricey. An good alternative to peanut oil would be canola oil or vegetable oil.
CREAMY HONEY SESAME DIP
For the detailed instructions on how to make the dip, you can grab the recipe card here: Creamy Honey Sesame Dip.
An alternative dip we like to use as well is our Creamy Coconut Dip
PREPARATION
Cut the chicken into uniform sizes so they cook evenly (1/2 inch to 1 inch), once that is done, it should be marinated in buttermilk brine overnight or for at least 4 hours.
Once the chicken is done marinating, we can now coat the chicken with these steps:
- Remove chicken from the buttermilk
- Lightly coat the chicken in the flour mixture, dust off any excess flour.
Tip #1: When you start your first layer of flour dusting, don’t over do it. You only want a light coating to create a ‘glue’ affect for the rest of the layers. Too much flour on the first layering will produce a thick skin which won’t stick to the chicken, so when you take your first bite the whole batter slips right off. - Lightly coat the chicken in the egg mixture
- Coat the chicken with flour again (Don’t worry about perfectly coating it evenly, the messier it is the more texture your chicken will have, the crispier it will be! :))
- Repeat steps 3 and 4, if you want the chicken to have more batter.
We tested this recipe with different amounts of layers of egg and flour to see which one would turn out the crispiest. To be honest, I don’t think I could really tell the difference. The only major difference we noticed was that the one that was layered with 3 layers of egg and flour had a thicker batter. I personally preferred the one with the 2 coatings.
FRYING THE POPCORN CHICKEN
When i deep fry chicken, I always want to double fry it. It will give you a crispier chicken, and who doesn’t love that?
To start the first fry, always do it at a lower temperature so you don’t overcook it before you do the second fry. We adjusted our deep fryer to 320F and fried it for 1 minute.
Tip #2: Don’t overcrowd the fryer or pan, if you add too many pieces at once it will drop the temperature of the oil which will make the chicken less crispy.
(If you are doing it in pot, we highly suggest a thermometer since all stoves are set differently)
After 1 minute we pulled it out and let it rest for 1 minute.
For the second fry, we bumped the temperature to 350F, and cooked it for 3-4 minutes.
You’re probably thinking I am insane, because we’ve cooked the chicken for a total of 5 minutes right?
Let me explain! 🙂 Most of the time, we cook chicken longer because they are bigger pieces or that they have a bone in. These pieces are small, and are boneless, so they cook more quickly.
Ta-da! We are done! 🙂 Crispy bite sizes popcorn chicken with a dip! Great snack and party appetizers!
Tip #3: These can be reheated in the oven! So they make great party snacks!
Happy Snacking!
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PinDescription
These crispy bite sized buttermilk popcorn chicken go amazingly with our sweet creamy honey sesame dip. Perfect for sharing as a snack or appetizer.
Ingredients
Buttermilk Marinade
- 6 boneless chicken thighs (or any cut of boneless chicken)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tablespoons salt
Wet Mix
- 2 eggs
Dry Mix
- 1/4 cup potato starch or potato flour (can be substituted with corn starch, but it won’t be as crispy)
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3–4 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
- 1 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Creamy Honey Sesame Dip
Recipe for the dip is here: https://pupswithchopsticks.com/creamy-honey-sesame-dip/
Instructions
Preparation
- Cut the chicken up into 1 inch sized chunks and put it in a bowl or ziploc bag with 1 cup of buttermilk, water and salt
- Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, but it’s best to leave it overnight.
Mixing the Batter
- In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and set aside
- In another bowl, combine all the spices, starch and flour together and set aside
Deep Frying (First Fry)
- Set the deep fryer to 320F (160C) (if you are using a high wall pot over the stove, set the heat to medium low)
- One by one, take each chicken piece and lightly coat the flour mix and dust off the excess flour.
- Coat it with the egg mixture
- Coat it again in the flour mixture
- (Optional) Repeat the egg and flour mixture steps a few more times if you want a thicker batter.
- Deep fry the chicken in batches for 1 minute. Careful not to overcrowd the pan which will drop the oil temperature.
- Let the chicken rest on parchment paper or brown paper bags to absorb excess oil
Deep Frying (Second Fry)
- Set the deep fryer to 350F (177C) (if you are using a high wall pot over the stove, set the heat to medium)
- Add the chicken back in and cook it for 3-4 minutes
- Let it cool on newspaper, parchment paper or brown paper bag
- Enjoy! 🙂
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Servings
- Calories: 392 kcal
- Sugar: 4 g
- Sodium: 1574 mg
- Fat: 13g
- Carbohydrates: 38 g
- Protein: 29 g
Keywords: popcorn chicken
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are they are cheaper locally as well!) 🙂
John says
07.16.2018 atI have to say it’s kind of frustrating when people leave comments and rate a recipe without having tried it. “Wow, this looks great! Five stars!” Come on, people… I know we eat with our eyes first, but at least give it a go before rating it! 🙂
That said, I did try this recipe and it came out fairly well. I took the double-dip approach of applying the flour, and it led to a nicely crispy morsel of chicken. I did experiment with a single fry vs. a double fry. Honestly, there wasn’t much of a difference that I could tell. Color and texture were pretty similar.
One point I will call out is that you may run out of the flour mixture faster than expected – especially if you double or triple dip the chicken. I prepared a 1 1/2 lb. package of chicken tenders (cut to size) which required double the flour recipe listed above. Not a big deal, but important to keep that in mind. And speaking of using chicken tenders in place of other cuts, the results were great. Bright white pieces of juicy chicken — everyone loved them, though the spice content was a tad high for some. I decided, after some testing, to eliminate the cumin, cut the cayenne levels in half and eased up on the black pepper. That kept the flavor, but toned down the heat (which, again, wasn’t overpowering for some, but was noticeable for others).
4 Solid Stars 🙂
★★★★
Joyce says
07.20.2018 atWoohoo! I am so happy this turned out for you! So happy you experimented with the spice levels as well to get it just right! 🙂 You are actually making me crave this again, so I think I will need to make this again this weekend! haha
Jamie | A Sassy Spoon says
12.21.2016 atOmg yum! That chicken looks bomb but my eyes are ALL OVER that honey sesame dip! I’m a dip freak #sorrynotsorry 😉
★★★★★
Joyce says
12.22.2016 atThanks Jamie! I dip everything as well, EVERYTHING. haha! 😀
Marie @ Yay! For Food says
12.21.2016 atJoyce,
First of all, yes the bloat is very, very real. Ha ha.
Second, I want this fried chicken… it’s so crispy and the sauce is perfect! Thank you for the detailed instructions and pro pictures! Third, I’ve been thinking about a deep fryer; what deep fryer do you own?
Fourth, I love that pig cutting board!
Joyce says
12.22.2016 atI’m glad you understand. It is very real -_- haha!
Thanks for liking the flow and images! 🙂 I always wanted to know what the difference was between how crispy it would be if I had more batter so I figured I’d test this out!
I don’t recommend my deep fryer because I went with the cheapest possible one (thinking I won’t be deep frying much – oh how wrong I was) I would go with something with an easy clean option so you don’t need to pour out the oil to clean it out (it can get ridiculously messy and quite frankly it’s a pain). For my next deep fryer I was thinking of getting something like the T-Fal Ultimate EZ Clean Pro Deep Fryer. I’m not endorsing it, just looked into it and it seems to have a really great feature that allows you to drain the oil into this self contained container and while it’s doing that it filters out the floaty bits. Easy Peasy Cleanup! I have a 3.5 L one which Terry thinks is not big enough (we need to usually do 3-6 batches of frying to finish up a recipe but I am not 100% sure I agree with him on that one, bigger deep fryer means more deep frying. x_X haha
The pig cutting board! I love that too! I got it as a gift a while back, so I don’t remember where it was from but I love ALL THINGS PIGS! haha 🙂 I collect cute little pig things. I’m pretty sure my house must be borderline creepy with all the pig trinkets everywhere!
Marie @ Yay! For Food says
12.22.2016 atI’ll look into that fryer! Pig trinkets everywhere?! Adorable! Do you have Pippo from Sanrio? I loved Sanrio characters when I was really young.
Anyway, I was looking over your recipe again, and I may be blind, but what kind of oil did you use for frying the chicken?
Joyce says
12.23.2016 atYa everywhere!! 😀 I don’t have pippo, at the time I used to be obsessed with Pochacco haha Funny story, I actually had a giant 4 feet tall Pochacco doll when I was a kid and when I brought it home it scared my dog so much he peed on the spot after seeing it for the first time. o_O
Oh I forgot to mention! Use peanut oil (if you can’t find that or find it too pricy then canola oil works too). The reason is because they both are high smoking point oils which means they can withstand higher temperatures before it starts smoking, so it’s good for deep frying and crisping up anything 🙂
Thank you for pointing this out, I shall update the blog with this detail 🙂
Mikaela says
12.21.2016 atI LOVE how instructional this recipe is!! What deep fryer do you have/use? Can you post a link?? I’ve been wanting one / making myself not get one for so long, because I KNOW I will start deep frying EVERYTHING!! Lol.
Joyce says
12.22.2016 atThanks Mikaela! I’m so happy to hear you like the flow! I have no idea what deep fryer I have haha! It’s a cheapy one I picked up (since I didn’t think I would be using it a lot – boy was I wrong!) After I got this cheapy one (which I don’t recommend), I did a facepalm because I didn’t realize what a pain it was clean the oil. so if you do pick one up I’d suggest one that has like a easy clean up one (Kinda like the T-Fal Ultimate EZ Clean Pro Deep Fryer – I have never used this one before but if I was to get a new one I would go with that) It seems to have an easy way to drain out the oil and filter out the crud which is nice! Unless you don’t mind the process of: ‘pour-oil-in-a-bowl-over-the-sink-and-splash-it-all-over-yourself’. haha
Oh and also, I got the smallest standard sized one which I think was the 3.5L capacity one. Depending on how patient you are you might want to up the size of the fryer. I usually need to do 3 batches to finish my deep frying (and with the double frying in this recipe, it was like 6 batches) BUT having a smaller one might force you to keep your frying to a minimum too! Which is not a bad thing at all! 🙂
…and friend – you will deep fry EVERYTHING. haha I am going through this stage right now where my thought process is like: “Oh hey! I wonder how I should cook this? WHY NOT DEEP FRY IT?”, “Oh hey this recipe looks really cool! – WOULD IT BE BETTER DEEP FRIED?” haha!
Erica Schmidt says
12.21.2016 atUh, yum!!!! I don’t have a fryer and have always said I never would, but you may have just changed my mind. Pinning for later, thanks for sharing! Oh, and your photos are simply amazing!
Joyce says
12.21.2016 athaha! I sat on setting up a deep fryer for a long time, partially because I knew how dangerous it would be because I would deep fry everything under the sun. Just don’t set it up during the holidays when there is already so much holiday goodies around haha! 🙂 and thank you for liking it! 🙂
Romain says
12.20.2016 atDouble fried dark meat – Korean. Buttermilk – Southern America. This is really the best kind of east meets west fusion. I love it! Can’t wait to serve this up.
Joyce says
12.21.2016 atYes! 🙂 It’s fun to play with our food isn’t it? 🙂
Riva says
12.20.2016 atWow. Um, yes please! I cannot wait to make this for my 4 kiddos. They will devour it (I may have to triple the recipe!).
Joyce says
12.21.2016 at😀 I hope they like it as much as I did! I believe I doubled the recipe and ate most of it in one sitting. >_< haha!
Alyssa @ A Bite of Inspiration says
12.20.2016 atThis looks AMAZING!! Who doesn’t love deep fried food? Hot, crispy goodness. Love the double fry– extra crunchy! The honey sesame dip is so creative. It gives a fun asian twist to the dish. Definitely adding this to my list of recipes to make ASAP. You go girl!
Joyce says
12.21.2016 atThanks Alyssa! I love crunchy deep fried stuff. Comfort food to me. Om nom nom! Yea I learned to double fry everything, fries, chicken everything to make it crispy! 🙂