Crispy Honey Chicken
This is a Honey Chicken that’s built to last! This recipe brings together a plethora of Asian cooking secrets for a Honey Chicken that stays crispy for hours, even after tossing in the honey sauce. The Chinese Fry batter yields a crispy, puffy coating that’s light and not greasy, and requires no special ingredients or equipment!
Ingredients
1. Built-to-last crispy puffy Chinese fry batter
Here’s what you need to make a crispy Chinese fry batter that will stay crispy even overnight in the fridge (no exaggeration) and for hours once tossed in the Honey Chicken Sauce:
Here’s what you need to make a crispy Chinese fry batter that will stay crispy even overnight in the fridge (no exaggeration) and for hours once tossed in the Honey Chicken Sauce:
Notes on ingredients for stay-crispy puffy Chinese fry batter:
-
COLD soda water or club soda or seltzer water – NOT sparkling mineral water which is naturally carbonated (ie fizzy). We want something that has man-made bubbles in it which is fizzier. The fizz helps with the puff, the cold is key for ultra-crispy: the shock of the cold batter hitting the hot oil = super crispy virtually immediately;
-
MORE cornflour/cornstarch than flour – flour has gluten which causes crispy batters to soften. Cornflour is gluten-free, so using this in the batter is key for crispiness. (A use rice flour in a similar way in my Crispy Beer Battered Fish.) Why not just use all cornflour? Because it becomes like a thick glue that’s not workable as a batter, and also because cornflour stays white when fried. We want a nice golden colour for Honey Chicken;
-
Flour – we need some to activate the baking powder to make this crispy coating puffy (baking powder doesn’t work on cornflour) and also so the chicken pieces fry up nice and golden (as above – cornflour doesn’t go golden when fried, it stays white); and
-
Baking powder – the key ingredient to give the batter some lift so it’s puffy, rather than a thin coating that’s fully adhered to the chicken.
Excellent All Purpose crispy fry batter
This is a fry batter you can use for any recipe that calls crispy batter pieces of meat, such as General Tso’s Chicken, Orange Chicken, Lemon Chicken if you want a thicker, crunchier crust. And you needn’t restrict yourself to Asian recipes!
There are some extra tricks to using it for seafood (prawns/shrimp, fish) because they leech more water as they cook. Using the recipe as written, they are super crispy when hot, but go soggy as they cool. I will publish this fry batter as an “All-Purpose Crispy Fry Batter” once I’ve figured out the best way to use it for seafood and vegetables.
2. Chicken & marinade
CHICKEN MARINADE:
-
Chicken thighs are best because they’re juicier than breast and tenderloin which means you have more room for error with the fry time – handy for people who aren’t highly experienced with deep frying. But if you do want to use chicken breast, see recipe notes for extra tenderizing tips using baking soda.
-
Soy sauce – light soy sauce is best, to keep the honey sauce as clear as possible. All-purpose will work fine too but will make the sauce a wee bit darker. Do not use dark soy sauce – way too strong.
-
Cornflour/cornstarch – this acts as a tenderizer as well as slightly thickening the marinade so when dusted with cornflour before frying, it makes it stick.
3. Honey Sauce
Here’s what you need for the sauce. The two key things here for stay-crispy chicken are glucose or corn syrup which thickens the sauce to make it “candy-like” rather than soaking, and no water. More below.
1. NO water – most Honey Chicken sauces include water and cornflour/cornstarch for thickening. Crispy Coating and water are not friends! Give the water a miss;
2. Glucose or corn syrup – this makes the honey coating almost “candy” like, something you might’ve observed at Chinese restaurants. This is key for a Honey Chicken that stays as crispy as possible – just like the secret to Caramel Popcorn that stays crispy for weeks (no exaggeration!).
Both glucose and corn syrup become thin when warm so you can toss to coat the chicken, but as you toss and it cools, the sauce thickens quickly so it becomes a sticky coating that sits ON the crust rather than soaking INTO the crust and making it soggy.
Soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine add salt and a hint of Chinese restaurant flavour into the sauce so it’s not just a plain honey sauce. The water component in these largely cooks out when simmered, so it doesn’t compromise the crispiness!
Honey Chicken – yes, it’s sweet.
Honey Chicken is sweet. Full stop. That’s why kids are mad for it – and even when we grow up and know that it’s not good for us, we still can’t resist it.
The sweet is somewhat balanced by the savouriness of the chicken – the marinade and that crunchy fried crust. But overall, it is a sweet dish.
There is no sign of any sour or spicy in the Honey Sauce of Chinese restaurants. It is honey plus a bit of seasoning to add salt and a hint of complexity – soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine.
But if you want to introduce sour or spicy, please read the recipe notes for how to do this without compromising this no-soggy sauce.
How to make Built-To-Last Crispy Honey Chicken
Here’s how to make it. Commentary on each step is below these process photos:
-
Marinate chicken – to add seasoning into the pieces and also to tenderize so each piece is ultra-tender inside. This also gives us room for error in the frying time which is essential for ordinary folk who aren’t experienced fryers!
-
Cornflour/cornstarch coating – provides an extra layer to seal in the juiciness of the chicken so it doesn’t soften the crispy coating.
-
COLD batter – key step for ensuring ultra-crispy is COLD batter because the shock of the cold batter hitting hot oil = crispier chicken. The batter is made cold by making it just prior to frying and using fridge cold soda water/club soda. For extra insurance, you can also chill the bowl and dry ingredients before mixing in the water – a good tip for beginners;
-
Dip in batter – drop in a handful of chicken pieces, then coat in batter. Ready to fry!
5. Fry 1 (3 minutes)- 3 minutes at 180C/350F until LIGHT golden. It will be unusually pale because of the cornflour in the batter (which doesn’t brown) but a touch is all it takes to know it’s SUPER crispy!! This step is to cook the chicken through. The chicken is already very crispy, but it won’t stay crispy for more than 10 to 15 minutes once coated in sauce with a single fry – hence the double fry in Step 7!
6. COOL before double fry – another key tip to making crispiness-that-lasts! I do not know the science behind this, all I know is that double-frying cold chicken is crispier AND stays crispy for longer. Possibly the same reason why cold batter = crispier chicken?
7. Double fry (90 sec) – fast becoming the worst kept Asian secret, a quick double fry is THE secret to ultra-crispy less greasy fried food It also solves the batch-cooking cooling issue (ie first cooked goes cold) because you can crowd the pot for Fry #2 so all the chicken is reheated in one or at most, two quick batches.
Prefer to skip double-fry? Just do Fry #1 at 200C/350F for 4 minutes until golden, and keep cooked chicken warm in the oven. Directions in the recipe. Still, ultra-crispy even once sauced. Double fry just dials the crunch factor up to 11 – plus all the chicken is piping hot, freshly cooked.
8. Drain on a rack – we’ve gone to all this effort for crispy chicken, now is not the time to drain on paper towels, making the underside sweaty and soft! Elevate the chicken with a rack to drain it and ensure it stays crispy.
How to re-use oil
The oil can be reused twice because the chicken flavour is neutral so it doesn’t infuse the oil with flavour (heavily seasoned food like Southern Fried Chicken will taint the oil with flavour).
To re-use the oil, cool in the pot, line mesh colander with a single layer of paper towel, strain oil. Store until required – personally would stick to savoury rather than sweet.
How to make the Honey Sauce
Plonk-and-simmer job!
NOTE: There are not loads of sauce – just enough for a thin coating on each piece of chicken. You do not want more sauce – it’s a sweet dish as it is!
It will be thin like maple syrup when hot, will thicken to honey consistency once off the stove for 5 – 10 minutes, then as you toss the chicken through, it becomes like a thick sticky toffee that sticks on the surface of the chicken which is exactly what we want as opposed to soaking into the crispy crust.
See how sticky the sauce is? And also notice how the sauce isn’t dripping down onto the noodles – it’s all stuck on the chicken!
Puffy White Noodles!
Speaking of the noodles! Here in Australia, the typical suburban Chinese restaurant serves Honey Chicken and Honey Prawns on a bed of the pictured puffy white noodles.
They’re just vermicelli rice noodles that have been fried. Too greasy to eat and they aren’t flavoured at all, it’s really just more about nostalgic authenticity – and the fun of making it (which takes all of 3 seconds):
Purely optional – but seeing as you’ve got the oil out anyway, why not??
How long does the crispiness last, really?
Hand on heart, after tossing with the sauce, it stays crispy for 4 hours. Of course the sauce soaks in a bit, but not enough to affect the overall serious crunchy experience.
In the video and at the top of the post (the looping short video) where you see me cutting in a honey coated piece of chicken and you hear how crunchy it is, that was at the end of the video shoot so probably around 40 minutes after I tossed it in sauce.
Once refrigerated though, it stays a bit crispy but when reheated, it gets soggy. BUT, it can be made ahead…. read on!
How to make Honey Chicken ahead (100% perfect!)
All you do is fry the chicken per the recipe – double fry. Cool, refrigerate. Make sauce, store in container. The next day, take the chicken out of the fridge – it will still be crispy, but it’s cold – then bake 7 minutes it to heat up and make it even crispier!
Microwave or reheat sauce using other chosen method, toss and serve. It’s just like freshly made!
Though this Honey Chicken recipe only calls for 300g/10oz of chicken, once coated in the puffy batter it substantially increases in volume and it’s quite rich, being fried and coated in the sticky Honey sauce. It will easily serve 4 people with plain or Fried Rice plus a vegetable side dish.
Enjoy! – AzizaW
We Take Food Seriously
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incidition ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo condorico consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incidition
