Chicken fried chicken with gravy
Craggy, crunchy buttermilk-battered cutlets under peppery cream gravy with fluffy mashed potatoes, a Southern diner plate at home.
- 50 min total
- 45 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 4
- About $2.15 a serving
- 780 calories
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1¼ lb chicken breasts
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp hot sauce
- 2 cups milk, divided
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1½ cups instant mashed potatoes
From your pantry
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1¼ tsp salt, divided
- 1¼ tsp black pepper, divided
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1½ cups water
Each serving has about 780 calories, 45 g protein, 63 g carbs and 37 g fat, and costs about $2.15 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No chicken breasts? Boneless chicken thighs or chicken tenderloins work.
- No hot sauce? Sriracha works.
- No milk? Half-and-half works.
- No butter? Ghee works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the chicken into 4 cutlets and pound them between plastic wrap to ¼ inch thick. Soak them in the buttermilk and hot sauce in the fridge for 10 minutes, and wash your hands and board.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Timer: 10 min
Food safety: Wash your hands, the board and the knife with hot soapy water after touching raw meat, and don’t rinse raw chicken in the sink.
Mix 1¼ cups of the flour with the paprika, garlic powder, ½ teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper in a shallow dish.
Lift each cutlet out of the buttermilk, press it into the flour, dip it back in the buttermilk and press it into the flour again. Set on a plate.
Dolly’s tip: The double dip is what gives you those crunchy, craggy edges.Heat the oil in a large over medium-high until it .
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Shimmering oil. Oil shimmers when it’s hot enough to cook: its surface looks rippled and wavy, like heat over a road. That’s your cue to add the food, just before the oil would start to smoke.
How you’ll know: The oil looks wavy and runs thin like water when you tilt the pan, with no smoke yet.
Medium-high heat
Fry 2 cutlets at a time, 3 to 4 minutes per side, until deep and 165°F inside.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium-high heatTimer: 7 min
Dolly’s tip: Lay each cutlet in moving away from you so any splatter goes the other way.Food safety: Chicken and turkey are done at 165°F in the thickest part. A thermometer is the only sure check. Without one, cut into the thickest piece: it should be white all the way through, with no pink.
on paper towels.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Bring the water, ½ cup of milk, the butter and ¼ teaspoon of salt in a , in the potato flakes, and take it off the heat.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
Saucepan. A saucepan is a pot with tall, straight sides and one long handle. It’s for things that need depth, like rice, sauces or a few boiled eggs.
How you’ll know: The food fills it about halfway, leaving room to bubble without spilling over.
Stir. Stirring means moving food around with a spoon or spatula so it cooks evenly and doesn’t stick. Unless the recipe says constantly, every so often is plenty, and it gives food time to brown.
How you’ll know: When you drag the spoon across the bottom, nothing is sticking or scorching.
High heat
Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of oil from the . Over medium heat, in the last ¼ cup of flour and cook 1 minute.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Whisk. Whisking means beating quickly with a whisk or a fork to blend things together. It smooths out lumps and mixes eggs, oil or sauces evenly.
How you’ll know: It all looks one even color and texture, with no streaks or lumps.
Medium heatTimer: 1 min
Slowly in the rest of the milk and 3 to 4 minutes, until thick, then with the rest of the salt and pepper.
Whisk. Whisking means beating quickly with a whisk or a fork to blend things together. It smooths out lumps and mixes eggs, oil or sauces evenly.
How you’ll know: It all looks one even color and texture, with no streaks or lumps.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Season. Seasoning means adding salt, pepper or spices to bring out a food’s flavor. A little at a few stages tastes better than a lot all at the end.
How you’ll know: When you taste it, it tastes bright and like itself, not flat and not salty.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min 30 sec
Dolly’s tip: Scrape up the crispy bits from the bottom. They’re the flavor of the gravy.Serve the chicken on the mashed potatoes with the gravy spooned over both.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
