**The Art of Fried Chicken and Waffles**

When it comes to comfort food, few dishes evoke as much excitement and anticipation as fried chicken and waffles. This classic American dish is a staple of brunch menus and late-night eats alike, and for good reason. The combination of crispy, juicy fried chicken paired with a fluffy, golden-brown waffle is a match made in heaven. But what makes this dish truly exceptional? In this article, we'll explore the art of making fried chicken and waffles that will earn you a solid "babish fork shake of excellence."

**The Perfect Waffle**

To start, you'll need to make a few waffles. Don't worry, it's easier than you think. Simply pour 3/4 cup of waffle batter into the center of your waffle iron, close the lid, and let it cook for about 5 minutes or until the waffle is golden brown. Don't be discouraged if the batter doesn't quite reach the edge – a little extra won't hurt anyone! Once your waffle is done, carefully remove it from the iron and place it on a wire rack to keep warm in a low oven while you make more waffles with a bit more batter.

**Maple Whipped Cream**

While the waffles are finishing up, let's whip up some maple cream. Combining 1 cup of heavy cream with 2 tablespoons of pure Canadian maple syrup and maybe a teaspoon of vanilla extract or paste, whisk until the mixture is smooth and creamy. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer to get the job done, but I'll be using my trusty whip cream siphon for an extra-fancy touch. Once your cream is nice and stiff, it's time to plop it onto those waffles like you mean it.

**Spicy Honey**

No fried chicken and waffles are complete without a drizzle of spicy honey. For this recipe, I've decided to just kind of "wing it" – adding in about 1/3 cup of Frank's RedHot sauce to give the dish a nice kick. But feel free to adjust to taste! You can also use plain old honey if you prefer, but where's the fun in that? Once your cream is piling high on those waffles, drizzle on some spicy goodness and watch as the flavors come together.

**Blue Cheese Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Meatballs**

Now it's time for the main event: blue cheese stuffed buffalo chicken meatballs. You'll start by processing 2 cups of cooked chicken into fine bits using a food processor – just until it looks like ground meat, roughly speaking. Then, mix in some binding and flavoring agents, such as buttermilk, egg, red onion, garlic, and Frank's RedHot sauce. Don't overmix – you want to keep the texture nice and chunky.

Next, form these mixture into patties, making sure they're not too wet or dry. You don't want them to be like meatballs, after all! Take a few crumbles of blue cheese and stuff it inside each patty for an added burst of flavor. Now, it's time to create your breading station. In one bowl, you'll have all-purpose flour; in another, beaten eggs will do the trick; and finally, panko breadcrumbs will give you that nice crunch.

Using the wet-and-dry hand technique, coat each meatball in the breading station, making sure not to get any of it on your hands (which is easier said than done, trust me). Repeat with all the remaining balls, and then it's time for some deep-frying. Heat up a quart of vegetable oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, gently dipping each meatball into the hot oil until golden brown and crispy. Flip frequently and fry for about seven minutes on each side.

**Reheating Fried Chicken**

One of the biggest challenges when making fried chicken is getting it to stay crispy – especially if you're reheating leftovers. So, here's a little trick: reheat your fried chicken by dipping it in hot oil (about 325 degrees Fahrenheit) for just one to two minutes on each side, until the skin gets a bit crispy. Then, finish warming it up in a 350-degree oven until it's nice and toasty.

**The Final Touches**

Now that you have all your components, it's time to plate up! Place a few meatballs onto a stack of waffles, drizzle with spicy honey, and top with a generous dollop of maple whipped cream. And for garnish? A delicate leaf of celery greens will do the trick. The result is a dish that's equal parts comfort food and Instagram-worthy. So go ahead – treat yourself to some fried chicken and waffles, and taste the magic for yourself.

**The Verdict**

So how did our experiment turn out? While the blue cheese stuffed buffalo chicken meatballs were a hit, I have to admit that the chicken was a tad dry. But hey, it's all about balance – and in this case, a little extra moisture will make all the difference. One thing's for sure: with these waffle-frying, maple-whipping, spicy-honeying skills under your belt, you'll be the king (or queen) of brunch menus everywhere.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrestaurant workers have always been there for us they've worked long hours they've worked late nights they've worked all days away from their families all to make sure that we're happy and fed now it's time to repay the favor because of the kovat 19 pandemic millions of restaurant workers have either lost their jobs or had their hours drastically cut and his dining rooms across the country shudder takeout and delivery of the last remaining lifelines from many beloved restaurants so here's our challenge to you yes you the one in front of a screen with the hair and the shirt lucky bastard if you can afford it order more food than you can eat in one meal from your favorite restaurant but those leftovers in the fridge and make the most creative dish possible with them the next day take a picture post it to social media with hashtag leftovers challenge and urge your followers to do the same we've all gathered together to cook with leftovers from our favorite restaurants to give you a few ideas and click that donate button to give directly to the restaurant workers Community Foundation your money will go towards direct worker relief nonprofits supporting the restaurant industry and zero interest loans for restaurants to start back up again why are we still here let's give something yeah alright so for my entrant into beef leftovers challenge I submit to you fried chicken but not just any fried chicken really really good fried chicken from the Beatrice in which look it even came with a note from head chef and owner Angie Mar that's really nice and it also comes with Beatrice ins justifiably famous spicy vinegary honey a concoction I would eat by the spoonful if no one was looking up would you look at that I went who did it anyway we will definitely be putting that's a good use later if I don't eat the whole thing first for now all three recipes today are gonna require a separation of skin and meat from chicken bones so I'm gonna go ahead and rather graphically disassemble all this dark meat chicken which is gonna work better for our applications now I'm positive that there's something you could do with these bones make fried chicken bone stock but I'm gonna leave that one up to you guys to figure out now we're gonna go ahead and chop up our dark meat chicken into much more manageable bite-sized pieces which is gonna help make them more bite-sized the crispy skin however I'm gonna mince into much finer pieces almost like chicken skin breadcrumbs because we're primarily using these to add flavor or to use as a garnish alright now that we're all prepped let's get into our first dish fried chicken mac and cheese we're to start by grating about four and half of white American cheese before you roll your eyes this is just to use as the sauce base because it's full of stabilizers and emulsifiers for the flavorful side of things I'm going with pepperjack but you could use things like sharp cheddar Gouda Muenster now over on the stovetop named medium saucepan we are combining one-and-a-half cups each water and milk bring that to a boil and dumping in 8 ounces of our pasta of choice in this ingenious method from America's Test Kitchen just stir it every so often for six to eight minutes until it's about one minute shy of very al dente at this point we're gonna reduce the heat to medium-low and add some flavoring components one heaping teaspoon of Dijon mustard a little shake of cayenne pepper you are after all the Jordan clever of your cayenne pepper stay my territory whoa sorry chef Jon I'll stick with my good old-fashioned kosher salt and freshly ground pepper and at this point we're also gonna add our chopped up dark meat chicken as well as the shredded American cheese this way the chicken can heat through and the cheese can melt while we continue to cook everything together for an additional minute adjust the flame as necessary and once the pasta is cooked we're going to kill the flame entirely and add our more flavorful cheese but then just mixing that in to combine until it's evenly distributed and then we're covering preferably with a pot lid but sometimes you got to improvise and letting this sit off heat for about five minutes during which time we're gonna toast up some of our chicken skin garnish in a little bit of oil in a non-stick pan also gonna have a handful of panko breadcrumbs these are gonna soak up any of the extra chicken fat and bring even more crisp to the party once we've got our chicken skin topping out of the way it's time to take a look at what we have created the gooiest these stretchy is the easiest mac and cheese as yet discovered in this timeline I think it could be a little gooey so I'm gonna add a little bit more pepper jack cheese stir it up until melted there we go taste for seasoning and Bob's your uncle at this point you could totally serve it up just like this throw some in a bowl top it with I don't know a healthy grating of parmesan and some of our chicken skin bread crumb topping and already you're looking at a pretty fabulous use for leftover fried chicken but if you really want to blow your pants off pile some of this mac and cheese and some boilers safe serving ware topped with some chicken skin and a healthy grating of even more cheese throw it under a preheated broiler for four to five minutes until browned and bubbly and crisp and that's it folks I think we've gone full guy fieri crossed my tips and upside down backwards my uglies because I've got a one-way ticket to flavortown anyway I think we'd knocked this one out of the park on to recipe number two right after this commercial break I'm sure you've heard of fried chicken and waffles but have you heard of fried chicken in waffles into a small bowl we are combining one cup of all-purpose flour teaspoon and a half of kosher salt and one teaspoon of baking soda tiny was to combine get a bigger bowl and dump 1 cup of buttermilk into it followed by three tablespoons of melted butter and 1 large egg tiny whisk to combine and whoops I almost forgot we're gonna add an optional tablespoon of coarsely ground cornmeal to our dry ingredients not only is this gonna make our waffles a little more crispy it's gonna play real nice with those fried chicken flavors we're gently folding together the wet and dry ingredients and once mostly combined we're gonna add our chicken I'm gonna start by chopping the chicken into even smaller bite-sized pieces maybe bed Saturno cup and a half's worth as well as about 1/4 cup of our chicken skin and maybe two ounces of grated Parmesan go ahead and mix that until everybody's gotten to know each other and then let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes so the flour can completely hydrate then as lovers so often do we are thoroughly greasing both plates of our Belgian waffle maker preheating until preheated and then dumping 3/4 of a cup of waffle batter into the center closing flipping and depending on your waffle irons manufacturer cooking for about 5 minutes or until your waffle has reached a golden-brown state of completion as you can see three-quarters of a cup of batter wasn't quite enough but we're still gonna treat this waffle with all the dignity and respect it deserves keeping it warm on a wire rack in a low oven while we make a few more waffles with a little more batter there we go that's the sauce while the waffles are finishing cooking we're gonna make a quick maple whipped cream combining one cup of heavy cream with two tablespoons of maple syrup and maybe a teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla paste taani whisk to a state of homogeneity taste for tastiness and then it's time to whip you could whip this with a hand or stand mixer but I'm going to use a whip cream siphon give it a few shakes and pile an unrestrained amount on of your tall stack of waffles last but certainly not least a generous drizzle of our spicy honey oh my god this is definitely instagram-worthy but how does it taste well I'll tell you it tastes just like fried chicken and waffles with maple whipped cream and spicy honey so you know awesome but does it earn the babish fork shake of excellence yes it does and while it deserves to be a member at the clean plate club I'm trying not to die so I'll give the rest to Jess the last recipe I decided to just kind of wing it so to speak you'll see into a food processor goes about two cups of chicken along with a half cup of chicken skin processed until it's about as ground as you can get it and then we're gonna treat it sort of like a meatball mixing together some binding and flavoring agents 1/2 cup buttermilk 1 large egg a little grated red onion a little grated garlic and maybe 1/3 of a cup of Frank's redhot because as I'm sure it now makes sense I'm winging it beat that together with a fork and dump it into our ground chicken mixture along with about a half a cup of breadcrumbs to really help bind everything together done some gloves and get to mixin we don't want it too wet we don't want it to dry think again meatball style because that's pretty much what we're gonna make we're gonna start forming these guys into patties into which we are going to deposit a few crumbles of blue cheese which subsequently we are going to encase in the meats creating as you may have now deduced a blue cheese stuffed buffalo chicken meatball but we aren't done yet first we have to rinse and repeat with our remaining meats and cheese and then we must prepare a three-stage breading station into Bowl one goes from all-purpose flour into bowl two goes to cracked and beaten eggs and into Bowl three goes the rest of my panko breadcrumbs as you can see we are employing the wet hand dry hand technique using my left hand to touch dry stuff and my right hand to touch wet stuff this prevents breading from accumulating on one's fingers repeat with all the remaining balls and then last but not least you guessed it these guys are getting deep-fried let's grab our spheres and head on over to the stove top don't need that where we've got one quart of vegetable oil heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit into which we are going to gently dip our spheres flipping frequently and frying for about seven minutes until golden brown and crisp draining on a wire rack and keeping everybody warm in a low and while we construct a rudimentary buffalo sauce just equal parts butter and Frank's redhot Western New York's greatest contribution to society since ever whisk to combine and that I've decided to plate it up all fancy-like three pools of sauce on to which we're going to plop our spheres and then what's a garnish with what are we missing here ooh celery perhaps just the daintiest leaf of celery greens for garnish and there you have it some over fancified cheese stuffed buffalo chicken balls but how do they taste well as you can see they're only receiving a tenuous fork shake of excellence and that's because the chicken was predictably a little bit dry but they're still really good and now last but not least maybe the most practical advice I'm going to give you all day how to just straight-up reheat Fried Chicken get some vegetable oil up to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and drop it in if your chicken is already pretty dark like this stuff is only fry for one to two minutes until the skin gets a little crispy then finish warming up in a 350 degree oven and it'll be like brand-new Fried Chicken but who are we kidding you're gonna make the waffles those things were awesomerestaurant workers have always been there for us they've worked long hours they've worked late nights they've worked all days away from their families all to make sure that we're happy and fed now it's time to repay the favor because of the kovat 19 pandemic millions of restaurant workers have either lost their jobs or had their hours drastically cut and his dining rooms across the country shudder takeout and delivery of the last remaining lifelines from many beloved restaurants so here's our challenge to you yes you the one in front of a screen with the hair and the shirt lucky bastard if you can afford it order more food than you can eat in one meal from your favorite restaurant but those leftovers in the fridge and make the most creative dish possible with them the next day take a picture post it to social media with hashtag leftovers challenge and urge your followers to do the same we've all gathered together to cook with leftovers from our favorite restaurants to give you a few ideas and click that donate button to give directly to the restaurant workers Community Foundation your money will go towards direct worker relief nonprofits supporting the restaurant industry and zero interest loans for restaurants to start back up again why are we still here let's give something yeah alright so for my entrant into beef leftovers challenge I submit to you fried chicken but not just any fried chicken really really good fried chicken from the Beatrice in which look it even came with a note from head chef and owner Angie Mar that's really nice and it also comes with Beatrice ins justifiably famous spicy vinegary honey a concoction I would eat by the spoonful if no one was looking up would you look at that I went who did it anyway we will definitely be putting that's a good use later if I don't eat the whole thing first for now all three recipes today are gonna require a separation of skin and meat from chicken bones so I'm gonna go ahead and rather graphically disassemble all this dark meat chicken which is gonna work better for our applications now I'm positive that there's something you could do with these bones make fried chicken bone stock but I'm gonna leave that one up to you guys to figure out now we're gonna go ahead and chop up our dark meat chicken into much more manageable bite-sized pieces which is gonna help make them more bite-sized the crispy skin however I'm gonna mince into much finer pieces almost like chicken skin breadcrumbs because we're primarily using these to add flavor or to use as a garnish alright now that we're all prepped let's get into our first dish fried chicken mac and cheese we're to start by grating about four and half of white American cheese before you roll your eyes this is just to use as the sauce base because it's full of stabilizers and emulsifiers for the flavorful side of things I'm going with pepperjack but you could use things like sharp cheddar Gouda Muenster now over on the stovetop named medium saucepan we are combining one-and-a-half cups each water and milk bring that to a boil and dumping in 8 ounces of our pasta of choice in this ingenious method from America's Test Kitchen just stir it every so often for six to eight minutes until it's about one minute shy of very al dente at this point we're gonna reduce the heat to medium-low and add some flavoring components one heaping teaspoon of Dijon mustard a little shake of cayenne pepper you are after all the Jordan clever of your cayenne pepper stay my territory whoa sorry chef Jon I'll stick with my good old-fashioned kosher salt and freshly ground pepper and at this point we're also gonna add our chopped up dark meat chicken as well as the shredded American cheese this way the chicken can heat through and the cheese can melt while we continue to cook everything together for an additional minute adjust the flame as necessary and once the pasta is cooked we're going to kill the flame entirely and add our more flavorful cheese but then just mixing that in to combine until it's evenly distributed and then we're covering preferably with a pot lid but sometimes you got to improvise and letting this sit off heat for about five minutes during which time we're gonna toast up some of our chicken skin garnish in a little bit of oil in a non-stick pan also gonna have a handful of panko breadcrumbs these are gonna soak up any of the extra chicken fat and bring even more crisp to the party once we've got our chicken skin topping out of the way it's time to take a look at what we have created the gooiest these stretchy is the easiest mac and cheese as yet discovered in this timeline I think it could be a little gooey so I'm gonna add a little bit more pepper jack cheese stir it up until melted there we go taste for seasoning and Bob's your uncle at this point you could totally serve it up just like this throw some in a bowl top it with I don't know a healthy grating of parmesan and some of our chicken skin bread crumb topping and already you're looking at a pretty fabulous use for leftover fried chicken but if you really want to blow your pants off pile some of this mac and cheese and some boilers safe serving ware topped with some chicken skin and a healthy grating of even more cheese throw it under a preheated broiler for four to five minutes until browned and bubbly and crisp and that's it folks I think we've gone full guy fieri crossed my tips and upside down backwards my uglies because I've got a one-way ticket to flavortown anyway I think we'd knocked this one out of the park on to recipe number two right after this commercial break I'm sure you've heard of fried chicken and waffles but have you heard of fried chicken in waffles into a small bowl we are combining one cup of all-purpose flour teaspoon and a half of kosher salt and one teaspoon of baking soda tiny was to combine get a bigger bowl and dump 1 cup of buttermilk into it followed by three tablespoons of melted butter and 1 large egg tiny whisk to combine and whoops I almost forgot we're gonna add an optional tablespoon of coarsely ground cornmeal to our dry ingredients not only is this gonna make our waffles a little more crispy it's gonna play real nice with those fried chicken flavors we're gently folding together the wet and dry ingredients and once mostly combined we're gonna add our chicken I'm gonna start by chopping the chicken into even smaller bite-sized pieces maybe bed Saturno cup and a half's worth as well as about 1/4 cup of our chicken skin and maybe two ounces of grated Parmesan go ahead and mix that until everybody's gotten to know each other and then let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes so the flour can completely hydrate then as lovers so often do we are thoroughly greasing both plates of our Belgian waffle maker preheating until preheated and then dumping 3/4 of a cup of waffle batter into the center closing flipping and depending on your waffle irons manufacturer cooking for about 5 minutes or until your waffle has reached a golden-brown state of completion as you can see three-quarters of a cup of batter wasn't quite enough but we're still gonna treat this waffle with all the dignity and respect it deserves keeping it warm on a wire rack in a low oven while we make a few more waffles with a little more batter there we go that's the sauce while the waffles are finishing cooking we're gonna make a quick maple whipped cream combining one cup of heavy cream with two tablespoons of maple syrup and maybe a teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla paste taani whisk to a state of homogeneity taste for tastiness and then it's time to whip you could whip this with a hand or stand mixer but I'm going to use a whip cream siphon give it a few shakes and pile an unrestrained amount on of your tall stack of waffles last but certainly not least a generous drizzle of our spicy honey oh my god this is definitely instagram-worthy but how does it taste well I'll tell you it tastes just like fried chicken and waffles with maple whipped cream and spicy honey so you know awesome but does it earn the babish fork shake of excellence yes it does and while it deserves to be a member at the clean plate club I'm trying not to die so I'll give the rest to Jess the last recipe I decided to just kind of wing it so to speak you'll see into a food processor goes about two cups of chicken along with a half cup of chicken skin processed until it's about as ground as you can get it and then we're gonna treat it sort of like a meatball mixing together some binding and flavoring agents 1/2 cup buttermilk 1 large egg a little grated red onion a little grated garlic and maybe 1/3 of a cup of Frank's redhot because as I'm sure it now makes sense I'm winging it beat that together with a fork and dump it into our ground chicken mixture along with about a half a cup of breadcrumbs to really help bind everything together done some gloves and get to mixin we don't want it too wet we don't want it to dry think again meatball style because that's pretty much what we're gonna make we're gonna start forming these guys into patties into which we are going to deposit a few crumbles of blue cheese which subsequently we are going to encase in the meats creating as you may have now deduced a blue cheese stuffed buffalo chicken meatball but we aren't done yet first we have to rinse and repeat with our remaining meats and cheese and then we must prepare a three-stage breading station into Bowl one goes from all-purpose flour into bowl two goes to cracked and beaten eggs and into Bowl three goes the rest of my panko breadcrumbs as you can see we are employing the wet hand dry hand technique using my left hand to touch dry stuff and my right hand to touch wet stuff this prevents breading from accumulating on one's fingers repeat with all the remaining balls and then last but not least you guessed it these guys are getting deep-fried let's grab our spheres and head on over to the stove top don't need that where we've got one quart of vegetable oil heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit into which we are going to gently dip our spheres flipping frequently and frying for about seven minutes until golden brown and crisp draining on a wire rack and keeping everybody warm in a low and while we construct a rudimentary buffalo sauce just equal parts butter and Frank's redhot Western New York's greatest contribution to society since ever whisk to combine and that I've decided to plate it up all fancy-like three pools of sauce on to which we're going to plop our spheres and then what's a garnish with what are we missing here ooh celery perhaps just the daintiest leaf of celery greens for garnish and there you have it some over fancified cheese stuffed buffalo chicken balls but how do they taste well as you can see they're only receiving a tenuous fork shake of excellence and that's because the chicken was predictably a little bit dry but they're still really good and now last but not least maybe the most practical advice I'm going to give you all day how to just straight-up reheat Fried Chicken get some vegetable oil up to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and drop it in if your chicken is already pretty dark like this stuff is only fry for one to two minutes until the skin gets a little crispy then finish warming up in a 350 degree oven and it'll be like brand-new Fried Chicken but who are we kidding you're gonna make the waffles those things were awesome\n"