Hot honey: Drizzle on plenty of your favorite hot honey, and consider swapping out the lettuce for slaw.Consider adding a juicy tomato slice and some crisp-cooked bacon. Pimento cheese: Swap out the mayo for a generous schmear of pimento cheese on each bun half.Buffalo: Dredge the fried chicken through a mixture of ¼ cup Frank's Red Hot and two tablespoons melted butter, and add some crumbled blue cheese.If you'd like to amp things up, this crispy chicken sandwich recipe makes a fabulous starting point for all sorts of variations. Griddle the buns and assemble the sandwiches.Dredge chicken through buttermilk and breading - you can repeat this step for a thicker crust if you like.Your favorite brand of dill pickle slices heighten the whole experience just enough.You'll simply slice a few leaves crosswise into thin ribbons to produce the perfect shreds. Shredded romaine adds a little bit of lightness and crunch without overwhelming the sandwich.It's worth seeking out, but you can use a regular good-quality supermarket mayo if you want. It’s made with egg yolks instead of whole eggs and has a slightly thinner consistency.

Kewpie is a Japanese brand of mayonnaise that’s creamier, tangier, and higher in umami than American mayo.Kerrygold, for example, is sold in most supermarkets at a reasonable price. This sounds fancy but doesn't have to be. Here and virtually everywhere, I start with a cultured, salted butter from grass-fed cows. You'll griddle the rolls with a little bit of good butter.If you really want to kick things up, you can make your own. Think brioche or potato rolls for maximum flavor. Nice, flavorful, soft sandwich rolls contribute just the right vibe.You can use that or sunflower, canola, peanut, vegetable oil blend, or any other refined oil with a neutral taste and very high smoke point. Safflower oil is my high-heat, neutral-tasting vegetable oil of choice.Beyond that, all you need is the beautifully balanced collection of classic seasonings pictured above - which you probably have in your spice collection already. The base of the breading is a combination of good old all-purpose flour and some cornstarch, which contributes lightness and tons of crisping power.For this recipe, it's best to use real buttermilk (which is nice and thick) rather than one of the DIY substitutes that you may have used in baking from time to time. It contributes both flavor and an extra measure of tenderness. Buttermilk coats the brined chicken and helps a nice thick layer of breading adhere.If you've never tried this move before, you might find it's a game-changer that you'll want to incorporate into other chicken recipes, too. And since pickle slices are already part of the recipe, it makes so much sense in terms of both economy and flavor layering. This process locks in flavor and tenderness like you wouldn't believe. Your next, wildly efficient move is to use dill pickle brine to brine the chicken.If you like, you can use skin-on thighs for even more richness and batter-grabbing nooks and crannies. You'll definitely want boneless ones, and I almost always use skinless thighs too - they're easy to find and work beautifully. They're the perfect size, juicy and flavorful, and much harder to overcook. The first key to this recipe is to start with chicken thighs rather than breasts.

Chicken sandwich recipe