**The Great KFC Hack: A Recipe Comparison**

As someone who grew up eating Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), I was excited to try my hand at recreating their iconic dish using air frying. The original recipe from KFC calls for deep-frying chicken pieces, but with the rise of air fryers, it's now possible to achieve a similar crispy exterior without all the oil.

**The Air Fryer Method**

I started by trying the air fryer method, as it seemed like the most convenient and healthier option. I preheated my air fryer to 350 degrees and dredged the chicken pieces in a mixture of flour, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and white pepper. The result was...mixed. While the chicken was cooked evenly, it didn't have the same level of crispiness as the deep-fried version. I also noticed that the crust had some uneven patches, which made me wonder if this method would work better with a different recipe.

**The Deep Fried Daddy Mac Method**

Next, I turned to the "Deep Fried Daddy Mac" method, which involved dredging the chicken pieces in a mixture of flour, cornstarch, and spices before deep-frying them. This approach yielded significantly better results, with a crispy exterior that rivaled the store-bought version. The seasoning was spot-on, with just the right amount of salt and pepper to balance out the flavors. I also appreciated how juicy and succulent the chicken remained, even after cooking.

**The Homemade KFC Recipe**

After experimenting with both methods, I decided to create my own homemade KFC recipe using a combination of air frying and deep-frying techniques. The result was surprisingly delicious, with a crispy exterior that wasn't too greasy or burnt. To achieve this flavor profile, I added a few key ingredients to the recipe, including celery salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and MSG (a common ingredient in processed foods). While it's not an exact replica of KFC, my homemade version comes close.

**The Verdict**

While both methods have their strengths and weaknesses, I'm convinced that air frying can be a great alternative to deep-frying. With the right recipe and technique, you can achieve crispy, flavorful chicken without all the oil. The Deep Fried Daddy Mac method is definitely worth trying, as it yields significantly better results than the air fryer method. As for my own homemade KFC recipe, I'm happy with how it turned out, but I do think that adding MSG would take it to the next level.

**Lessons Learned**

One of the key takeaways from this experiment is the importance of using the right seasoning and spices. The addition of celery salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and MSG in my recipe helped to create a flavor profile that's remarkably close to KFC. Another lesson learned is that cooking time and temperature are crucial when air frying. With these techniques in mind, I'm excited to try more recipes in the fryer and explore the full potential of my air fryer.

**The Future of Air Fryer Recipes**

As I continue to experiment with different recipes and techniques, I'm excited to share them with you. Whether it's trying new seasonings or exploring alternative cooking methods, I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve and expand my repertoire of air fryer recipes. If you have any favorite recipes or suggestions, please share them in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: engreetings my beautiful lovelies it's emmy welcome back today i'm going to attempt to make kentucky fried chicken with what might be the actual 11 herbs and spices recipe like the real deal like the top secret one that nobody knows yes this recipe might be the one now there's a little backstory to this the recipe i'm going to be using actually came from the chicago tribune and a reporter went to meet joe ledington which is the nephew of colonel sanders like the colonel sanders yes so the nephew and apparently in a scrapbook of his aunt claudia's which was the second wife of colonel sanders in there was written a list of 11 herbs and spices and amounts jackpot so as a good reporter should the recipe amounts and ingredients were published and also tested so i'm going to be following the chicago tribune's recipe they also have a little video i'll put all the links down below in the description on how to make this chicken so it's the new year and a lot of people are making resolutions that involve healthy eating making good choices so i thought this might be a good opportunity to test out an air fryer so not only am i going to be testing the kfc secret recipe but i'm also going to be comparing an air fryer versus deep frying so honestly i don't see how an air fried chicken will taste as good as a deep fried chicken but we can do a comparison and say it's pretty good or not so good but i will never ever be the deep fried kfc because it's a completely different method it doesn't use the right amount of oil but maybe it comes close i've never cooked with an air fryer before so let's find out let me catch you up with what i've done already so what i've gotten here are six chicken drumsticks that have been marinating in one cup of buttermilk and one egg and that was beaten together and i placed my chicken in there and it says to let this rest for 20 to 30 minutes so what we're doing here is tenderizing the chicken the buttermilk contains a little bit of acid and that breaks down the meat a little bit to make it more juicy and succulent this will also create the batter for our chicken after we've given it a good soaking we're going to dredge it in flour and in combination with that flour that's gonna make our crust now in this bowl i have two cups of all-purpose flour so two-thirds of a tablespoon of salt half a tablespoon of thyme half a tablespoon of basil third of a tablespoon of oregano one tablespoon celery salt one tablespoon of black pepper one tablespoon dried mustard four tablespoons of paprika two tablespoons of garlic salt oh my gosh one tablespoon of dried ginger here's another one i never would have guessed three tablespoons of white pepper this is a thai version isn't this can awesome i love this three tablespoons oh my goodness that's one two three don't breathe this stuff in as my brother can a test it will make you sneeze now that's 11 herbs and spices right there but the chicago tribune said that it didn't taste quite right until they added one special ingredient and it is this and this is msg monosodium glutamate it's used in a lot of cookery it's delicious it has this really great what often people say umami flavor which is just this delicious flavor of kind of sweet and salty i'd say more salty so i feel that msg has gotten a bit of a bad rap it's often associated with bad chinese take out food but in fact it is found everywhere if you look at the ingredients list of most packaged chips and crackers seasoned snacks you will see monosodium glutamate msg listed sometimes is disguised as natural yeast extract it makes things taste delicious because glutamates which are naturally found in things like mushrooms in cheeses in soy sauce that mysterious lovely salty flavor is delicious in our taste buds in our minds so scientists were able to extract that refine it and then we can sprinkle it like we do salt so just like the food industry does i'm going to add a little bit of that i'm going to add half a teaspoon now i'm going to carefully stir this up there is a lot of seasoning in this so now what we're going to do is take our chicken pieces dredge it into the seasoned flour get it really coated now we're going to place this on a rack and we're going to let that rest for 20 minutes do that for all of these pieces let's talk a little bit about air fryers so from my understanding air fryers have become popular in the last few years but i do remember a model way back i believe it was called the new wave it had a glass kind of hood around it and you could cook an entire chicken inside it and basically what an air fryer does it uses air to fry the food the air is heated to a very hot temperature there is a fan similar to a convection oven that circulates the air around the food and then allows the heat to kind of crisp up the food without using a ton of fat i'm curious to see how well it's going to do for the chicken because the chicken has not been pre-fried or cooked this is not frozen or reheating any items this is just cooking a raw chicken that has been kind of battered so the model i chose was this one look at this great big box can you believe this oh my gosh it's huge it's the cuisinart air to new way to fry air fryer toaster oven i chose this particular model because i like the flexibility of using it not only as an air fryer but as a toaster oven to reheat things to cook small things i like that idea it does take up more counter space as you can see and the thing is pretty heavy with about 25 pounds a lot of the air fryer models that i've seen are much smaller you can see they're like this big but it has a very small chamber as well so you can only cook a couple things at one time i'm basing my cooking times off the little booklet and they have a recipe for beer battered chicken wings this is the air frying basket that came with the fryer and this little pan so it says to place the basket on the pan and i'm going to place two into the basket like that close that up set my knobs 400 degrees at airfry 20 minutes ooh there it goes can you hear it wow so while that's cooking for 20 minutes i'm gonna go ahead and deep fry my remaining drumsticks in my cast iron skillet here i've got about two and a half inches of vegetable oil that have heated to 350 degrees here we go oh yes that's a beautiful sound a beautiful sound oh yes it's really important when you deep fry to make sure your fat is really hot and that's where a thermometer comes in real handy about halfway through my cooking of my air fried chicken i noticed that this started to happen yeah the chicken started burning so 10 minutes in i reduced the temperature from 400 to 350 and i popped a new one in there so this one is not quite cooked i'm going to take these ones off because they're done that was oh left some of the crust behind 350 degrees but it still did the same thing now let's compare that with my deep fried version and look how dark and mahogany this crust is look at that and listen to that crust this one's pretty crispy too the airfryer not a drop of oil just the fat that's in the skin of the chicken so here's my two-piece kentucky fried chicken meal there we go so as you can see right off the bat the homemade version is much darker in color than the original the recipe called for 350 degrees which is a pretty typical deep frying temperature i should also mention if you're going to be frying chicken it's important to make sure your chicken is cooked all the way through i recommend getting yourself an instant read thermometer make sure that it's at 165 degrees let's give this a taste i haven't had kfc in so long look how tiny the drumstick is i remember them being a lot bigger already i was a lot smaller too all right here we go itadakimasu that's some good chicken gosh i haven't had that in so long now i understand that i grew up eating kentucky fried chicken so i'm probably partial to these particular flavors but this is just as i remember the skin is not as crunchy because i usually get the extra crispy but still flavorful it's got a little bit more spice than i remember because i think now that i made this recipe i'm like oh yeah there is a lot of white pepper in there but it's delicious now let's taste the homemade version so i'm impressed with the airfryer in the sense that it did make this pretty crispy if you can hear that very crispy but it burnt it and it cooked it unevenly see all these kind of flowery patches and it's just not very attractive it did fully cook it in the 20 minutes which i was impressed with as well let's see how it tastes here we go hmm i do have to say the homemade version is a little bit more delicious than the store-bought version because this was just freshly fried the meat is so succulent and juicy and hot and like all fried foods they're best when they are fried fresh there's no stale oil flavors no potatoey chip flavors just freshly cooked fried chicken it's really good what about flare i have to say it does taste very similar to the original version except this is a little spicier there's a little bit more peppery kick to it this part doesn't taste as creasy as i thought this is black so i thought it was going to taste like tar but it doesn't it's pretty tasty and for not adding any additional oil i am impressed with the amount of crispness on here just not the burntness but i suspect that this is just not the recipe for an air fryer perhaps if i did more of a wet batter rather than doing this kind of dry dredge i would get less of this kind of uneven cooking alrighty let's try the deep fried daddy mac version all right here we go hmm that's pretty good did you hear that crispness that's some pretty tasty fried chicken right there look how juicy and succulent that is the crust is crisp it has a great caramelized flavor nicely deep fried and that seasoning is great i was concerned it would be a little bit overly salty because we added celery salt garlic salt and regular salt but it's not because we didn't season the buttermilk because we didn't season the chicken it actually works really well there's just kind of a light coating of that powder actually but really really good recipe i really do recommend the addition of msg to this recipe it really makes it taste processed it makes it taste like kfc don't be afraid of msg it's already in everything already you just don't know it just look in the back of a package of hidden valley ranch mix and you'll see what i'm talking about so there is the homemade kfc recipe i would say it's pretty stinking close and in terms of the airfryer i'm not going to give up on it i think it just requires a different recipe i like the ease of it i like the convenience i like the capacity of the airfryer i just need to cook some other recipes so help me out let me know in the comments if there are recipes that i must try in the fryer this is my first attempt at cooking anything so i'm ready to try some other things as well and i hope you guys enjoy that one i hope you guys learned something please share this video with your friends follow me on social media and i shall see you in the next one toodaloo take care bye i think i had chicken in my mouth the whole time i was doing that like right there attractivegreetings my beautiful lovelies it's emmy welcome back today i'm going to attempt to make kentucky fried chicken with what might be the actual 11 herbs and spices recipe like the real deal like the top secret one that nobody knows yes this recipe might be the one now there's a little backstory to this the recipe i'm going to be using actually came from the chicago tribune and a reporter went to meet joe ledington which is the nephew of colonel sanders like the colonel sanders yes so the nephew and apparently in a scrapbook of his aunt claudia's which was the second wife of colonel sanders in there was written a list of 11 herbs and spices and amounts jackpot so as a good reporter should the recipe amounts and ingredients were published and also tested so i'm going to be following the chicago tribune's recipe they also have a little video i'll put all the links down below in the description on how to make this chicken so it's the new year and a lot of people are making resolutions that involve healthy eating making good choices so i thought this might be a good opportunity to test out an air fryer so not only am i going to be testing the kfc secret recipe but i'm also going to be comparing an air fryer versus deep frying so honestly i don't see how an air fried chicken will taste as good as a deep fried chicken but we can do a comparison and say it's pretty good or not so good but i will never ever be the deep fried kfc because it's a completely different method it doesn't use the right amount of oil but maybe it comes close i've never cooked with an air fryer before so let's find out let me catch you up with what i've done already so what i've gotten here are six chicken drumsticks that have been marinating in one cup of buttermilk and one egg and that was beaten together and i placed my chicken in there and it says to let this rest for 20 to 30 minutes so what we're doing here is tenderizing the chicken the buttermilk contains a little bit of acid and that breaks down the meat a little bit to make it more juicy and succulent this will also create the batter for our chicken after we've given it a good soaking we're going to dredge it in flour and in combination with that flour that's gonna make our crust now in this bowl i have two cups of all-purpose flour so two-thirds of a tablespoon of salt half a tablespoon of thyme half a tablespoon of basil third of a tablespoon of oregano one tablespoon celery salt one tablespoon of black pepper one tablespoon dried mustard four tablespoons of paprika two tablespoons of garlic salt oh my gosh one tablespoon of dried ginger here's another one i never would have guessed three tablespoons of white pepper this is a thai version isn't this can awesome i love this three tablespoons oh my goodness that's one two three don't breathe this stuff in as my brother can a test it will make you sneeze now that's 11 herbs and spices right there but the chicago tribune said that it didn't taste quite right until they added one special ingredient and it is this and this is msg monosodium glutamate it's used in a lot of cookery it's delicious it has this really great what often people say umami flavor which is just this delicious flavor of kind of sweet and salty i'd say more salty so i feel that msg has gotten a bit of a bad rap it's often associated with bad chinese take out food but in fact it is found everywhere if you look at the ingredients list of most packaged chips and crackers seasoned snacks you will see monosodium glutamate msg listed sometimes is disguised as natural yeast extract it makes things taste delicious because glutamates which are naturally found in things like mushrooms in cheeses in soy sauce that mysterious lovely salty flavor is delicious in our taste buds in our minds so scientists were able to extract that refine it and then we can sprinkle it like we do salt so just like the food industry does i'm going to add a little bit of that i'm going to add half a teaspoon now i'm going to carefully stir this up there is a lot of seasoning in this so now what we're going to do is take our chicken pieces dredge it into the seasoned flour get it really coated now we're going to place this on a rack and we're going to let that rest for 20 minutes do that for all of these pieces let's talk a little bit about air fryers so from my understanding air fryers have become popular in the last few years but i do remember a model way back i believe it was called the new wave it had a glass kind of hood around it and you could cook an entire chicken inside it and basically what an air fryer does it uses air to fry the food the air is heated to a very hot temperature there is a fan similar to a convection oven that circulates the air around the food and then allows the heat to kind of crisp up the food without using a ton of fat i'm curious to see how well it's going to do for the chicken because the chicken has not been pre-fried or cooked this is not frozen or reheating any items this is just cooking a raw chicken that has been kind of battered so the model i chose was this one look at this great big box can you believe this oh my gosh it's huge it's the cuisinart air to new way to fry air fryer toaster oven i chose this particular model because i like the flexibility of using it not only as an air fryer but as a toaster oven to reheat things to cook small things i like that idea it does take up more counter space as you can see and the thing is pretty heavy with about 25 pounds a lot of the air fryer models that i've seen are much smaller you can see they're like this big but it has a very small chamber as well so you can only cook a couple things at one time i'm basing my cooking times off the little booklet and they have a recipe for beer battered chicken wings this is the air frying basket that came with the fryer and this little pan so it says to place the basket on the pan and i'm going to place two into the basket like that close that up set my knobs 400 degrees at airfry 20 minutes ooh there it goes can you hear it wow so while that's cooking for 20 minutes i'm gonna go ahead and deep fry my remaining drumsticks in my cast iron skillet here i've got about two and a half inches of vegetable oil that have heated to 350 degrees here we go oh yes that's a beautiful sound a beautiful sound oh yes it's really important when you deep fry to make sure your fat is really hot and that's where a thermometer comes in real handy about halfway through my cooking of my air fried chicken i noticed that this started to happen yeah the chicken started burning so 10 minutes in i reduced the temperature from 400 to 350 and i popped a new one in there so this one is not quite cooked i'm going to take these ones off because they're done that was oh left some of the crust behind 350 degrees but it still did the same thing now let's compare that with my deep fried version and look how dark and mahogany this crust is look at that and listen to that crust this one's pretty crispy too the airfryer not a drop of oil just the fat that's in the skin of the chicken so here's my two-piece kentucky fried chicken meal there we go so as you can see right off the bat the homemade version is much darker in color than the original the recipe called for 350 degrees which is a pretty typical deep frying temperature i should also mention if you're going to be frying chicken it's important to make sure your chicken is cooked all the way through i recommend getting yourself an instant read thermometer make sure that it's at 165 degrees let's give this a taste i haven't had kfc in so long look how tiny the drumstick is i remember them being a lot bigger already i was a lot smaller too all right here we go itadakimasu that's some good chicken gosh i haven't had that in so long now i understand that i grew up eating kentucky fried chicken so i'm probably partial to these particular flavors but this is just as i remember the skin is not as crunchy because i usually get the extra crispy but still flavorful it's got a little bit more spice than i remember because i think now that i made this recipe i'm like oh yeah there is a lot of white pepper in there but it's delicious now let's taste the homemade version so i'm impressed with the airfryer in the sense that it did make this pretty crispy if you can hear that very crispy but it burnt it and it cooked it unevenly see all these kind of flowery patches and it's just not very attractive it did fully cook it in the 20 minutes which i was impressed with as well let's see how it tastes here we go hmm i do have to say the homemade version is a little bit more delicious than the store-bought version because this was just freshly fried the meat is so succulent and juicy and hot and like all fried foods they're best when they are fried fresh there's no stale oil flavors no potatoey chip flavors just freshly cooked fried chicken it's really good what about flare i have to say it does taste very similar to the original version except this is a little spicier there's a little bit more peppery kick to it this part doesn't taste as creasy as i thought this is black so i thought it was going to taste like tar but it doesn't it's pretty tasty and for not adding any additional oil i am impressed with the amount of crispness on here just not the burntness but i suspect that this is just not the recipe for an air fryer perhaps if i did more of a wet batter rather than doing this kind of dry dredge i would get less of this kind of uneven cooking alrighty let's try the deep fried daddy mac version all right here we go hmm that's pretty good did you hear that crispness that's some pretty tasty fried chicken right there look how juicy and succulent that is the crust is crisp it has a great caramelized flavor nicely deep fried and that seasoning is great i was concerned it would be a little bit overly salty because we added celery salt garlic salt and regular salt but it's not because we didn't season the buttermilk because we didn't season the chicken it actually works really well there's just kind of a light coating of that powder actually but really really good recipe i really do recommend the addition of msg to this recipe it really makes it taste processed it makes it taste like kfc don't be afraid of msg it's already in everything already you just don't know it just look in the back of a package of hidden valley ranch mix and you'll see what i'm talking about so there is the homemade kfc recipe i would say it's pretty stinking close and in terms of the airfryer i'm not going to give up on it i think it just requires a different recipe i like the ease of it i like the convenience i like the capacity of the airfryer i just need to cook some other recipes so help me out let me know in the comments if there are recipes that i must try in the fryer this is my first attempt at cooking anything so i'm ready to try some other things as well and i hope you guys enjoy that one i hope you guys learned something please share this video with your friends follow me on social media and i shall see you in the next one toodaloo take care bye i think i had chicken in my mouth the whole time i was doing that like right there attractive\n"