The secret is out. Chick-fil-A is a Southern staple. We've loved and lost the Carrot-and-Raisin Salad , and are still a little sour about the removal of our beloved Lemon Pie. But, one item on Chick-fil-A's menu that has our heart fully — and won't change — is the restaurants iconic fried chicken fillets.
Known best when sandwiched on a bun with a couple of pickles, Chick-fil-A's classic chicken sandwich is the one we crave on Sundays and, promptly pick up on Mondays.
How do we make a Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich? Then, we bread it by hand. Our pickles? They are sliced from cucumbers, then soaked for three full days before they are shipped to our restaurants. Visit your closest Chick-fil-A for a hand-prepared, delicious meal! On the go and need a light afternoon snack? Chick-fil-A wanted their chicken sandwich to taste like it just came off a backyard grill and there simply wasn't a commercial grill on the market that could deliver that exact taste with their chicken.
Even for a business that revolves around chicken, that sort of investment might seem like a bit of overkill, but the company wanted to make sure the relaunch of their grilled chicken sandwich was in a league of its own. This ensures that it doesn't squeeze out all the juices from the breast meat while cooking.
Unlike a typical backyard grill, the CFA grill cooks both sides of the chicken at once, while still leaving those appetizing grill marks that hopefully make it taste like a really good piece of chicken from a backyard cookout spoiler alert: it's better.
Part of the culinary magic that goes into Chick-fil-A's chicken is the seasoning that helps to really give the meat an extra kick of flavor. It's not something as simple as a dash of salt and pepper, and it took the company years to perfect.
When it came to developing a seasoning that would help CFA's grilled chicken really pop and stand equal with their fried chicken, the company's culinary scientists did extensive testing.
Chick-fil-A of course, won't reveal the exact recipe for its seasoning, but have said that it's a blend of sea salt, lemon, garlic, and various savory herbs. The end result is a seasoning that can be replicated on every chicken sandwich to really bring out that smoky grilled flavor. There aren't many foods that taste better when they're frozen during the cooking process, and customers at Chick-fil-A can rest assured that their chicken will never be frozen when it hits the fryer or grill.
Whereas chicken nugget competitors like McDonald's do serve chicken that has been pre-cooked then frozen and refried, CFA takes the opposite approach and ensures that their thawed chicken goes directly to the customer after its cooked.
Now to clarify, the chicken is frozen when delivered to each Chick-fil-A restaurant, but it's fully thawed before the cooking process ever begins and never pre-breaded.
In fact, each piece of chicken is moved from the freezer to the fridge and allowed to thaw for a full 24 hours before ever hitting the fryer or grill. While frozen chicken can safely be cooked, it tends to take longer and can result in a less evenly cooked piece of meat that simply doesn't taste as good. So how does Chick-fil-A ensure that each chicken sandwich has the perfect amount of breading that doesn't come sliding off the meat after a single bite? Well, like just about everything else in their chicken-cooking process, it's all about how that process is done.
After each piece of chicken is inspected to make sure it doesn't have any tears or glaring imperfections, it's dipped in a milk and egg wash mixture with the larger end of the chicken breast going in first. The chicken is then laid into a bin with a flour mixture and completely buried. Now, one might think that this is good enough and the chicken breading process is complete. Nope, here comes the hard part.
CFA employees are encouraged to get on their tip-toes and use their body weight to firmly knead the breading mixture into the meat. Doing this to both sides of the chicken breast might be tiring, but makes for a more evenly-coated piece of breaded chicken that helps to create a crispy fried chicken cutlet that can't be beat.
It's not just the smaller chicken breasts and pickles that help make Chick-fil-A's chicken so tasty — the oil that chicken is cooked in is also part of the secret recipe.
Chick-fil-A cooks all of its fried chicken in percent refined peanut oil. Don't worry, it's generally not considered allergenic by the FDA. Because of this, the company buys more peanut oil than any other business in the United States. You can cook chicken in everything from olive oil to corn oil to coconut oil, but there's a good reason why CFA founder S. Truett Cathy chose peanut oil for his chicken.
Despite peanut oil having a nutty and mild sweet flavor, it doesn't pass these flavors off to the foods that are cooked in it, as more strongly-flavored oils might. Thus, the chicken cooked in it just tastes like chicken. This ensures that the flavors of the pickle juice maybe and breading on the chicken aren't tainted by the cooking oil, and all the important flavors are free to shine through. There really are no parts of Chick-fil-A's chicken-cooking process where employees are told to just wing it and do whatever they think is best.
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