Mayonnaise is surprisingly effective for making well-seasoned fried chicken with a light, crispy coating.

Time: 3/5
Dinner is served in an hour so it doesn’t take that long, but please don’t try to meal prep fried chicken.

Effort: 3/5
Pleasantly surprised by how much easier fried chicken is than I imagined! Read on to see how I made things work.

Ayo! Mayo?

I was on the train coming home from work when I started daydreaming about the little takeout container of mayonnaise left over from that time I had Jollibee last week (don’t we all?). As I did so, a sudden thought appeared in my mind.

Could you make fried chicken with mayonnaise? Turns out, you absolutely can!

By using the thick and viscous mayo as a base to hold on to seasonings and the flour (kind of like a yogurt marinade), it resulted in a nice and light coating after frying the chicken. While you won’t get so much of that shattering crunch, sometimes I feel like I am eating more breading than chicken with recipes that use a heavier coating or a batter. Thin and light coating is the way I like it.

This little fever dream of mine ended up becoming a great culinary adventure, as I headed off to the grocery store with spring in my step. It was also an excuse to use my cast iron skillet again. It’s a small pan, maybe 6 inches in diameter, which means I can use less oil and still be able to submerge the pieces of chicken halfway. And that means less leftover fry oil to fret about using or getting rid of, at the end of the day.

Yet another benefit of using mayonnaise to hold on to the flour coating is less cleanup – I remember making the Korean Fried Chicken, and dreading having to face the mess in the kitchen before I was even done eating! It obviates the need for an egg wash, and by extension the trouble of having to clean up an additional dish and/or thinking of ways to use up the awkwardly small quantity of leftover egg.

As much as I would like to serve the chicken with some rice and plenty of gravy, I decided to go with some lighter side dishes instead to balance things out. Sweet potatoes have plenty of fiber and keep you full for a long time for not so many calories. And since I’ll be roasting the sweet potatoes in the oven, getting some zucchini to roast right alongside them is just the perfect synergy!

Dramatis Personae

Chicken – 2 to 3 drumsticks per person

Drumsticks are a beginner friendly piece to fry, in my opinion. It’s dark meat, so it doesn’t dry out as easily. There’s plenty of skin to get crispy, and it’s small enough that I don’t need to worry about the outsides burning before the insides cook properly.

Having said, use whatever cut you can get your hands on. There shouldn’t be any changes to the technique besides adjusting the time and temperature when you fry.

Marinade and breading

Mayonnaise plays a similar role to yogurt in other recipes (like my tangy garlicky chicken) by being a medium for holding seasonings close to the chicken’s skin. Arguably, it works even better than yogurt as a marinade because its higher fat content could help pull out lipid-soluble flavour molecules.

After lathering on a thin film of the Jollibee aioli, I seasoned my chicken with salt, white pepper, paprika, cumin, and a dried mixed herb blend. Not quite 11 herbs and spices, but close enough. There’s MSG and garlic powder in the garlic aioli so I didn’t add any of those ingredients. You could leave the MSG out, but I highly recommend a bit of it to make the flavours really pop like you got it from the shop.

As for the breading, I went really simple. I dusted the chicken pieces with some all purpose flour and gave the chicken pieces a light pat to make sure the flour adhered onto the mayonnaise.

Sweet potatoes

One small to medium piece per person. I like to scrub the sweet potatoes very well and leave the skins on, because the skin is where all the good stuff is. Poke holes all over the skin with a fork so that steam has somewhere to escape (instead of building up inside and exploding the sweet potato unpredictably), then stick it into an oven at 400F/200C for about 40 minutes uncovered to roast. Exact times will depend on how big your potatoes are.

Water will escape the sweet potato as it roasts, which will concentrate the sugars and the flavour. The result of roasting it uncovered is a sweeter, more flavourful sweet potato than if you cooked it by boiling or steaming!

Zucchini

One zucchini served the both of us, sliced into thin medallions. I usually allow for a bit more vegetables than this, but the sweet potatoes already contributed some fiber to this meal. Since the oven is already nice and hot from roasting the sweet potatoes, why not roast the vegetables instead? Toss it in olive oil, salt and pepper right in the baking sheet 10 minutes before the sweet potatoes are done.

Executive summary

1. Combine chicken, mayonnaise and seasonings. Make sure the chicken is coated well, and marinade overnight.
2. Preheat oven. Wash, stab and roast sweet potatoes.
3. Heat oil in a cast iron pan. When the oil bubbles around a pair of wooden chopsticks, fry the chicken.
4. Keep heat on medium, or medium-low. Turn the chicken when half-way done, or about 10-12 minutes per side.
5. Wash and slice zucchini. 10 minutes before the sweet potato is done
6. Once chicken, sweet potatoes and zucchini are done, combine and serve.

Play by Play

Here’s the hero! A tiny tub of leftover garlic aioli. I have high hopes for you, little buddy!

Mayo in, then spices. Mix mix mix, right in the tub, with one hand. The mess is contained, and my right hand is still clean. Into the fridge they go to marinade overnight.

Here we are the next day. I forgot to take a photo, but the sweet potato is already in the oven and doing its thing. Toss chicken in flour until well coated. I only used my left hand so my right is still clean, and I did it right in the container as well.

Into the oil they go. Nice and moderate heat, so the thickest parts can cook before the outside burns. Here is where a splatter guard will make a big difference – you’ll thank yourself when it comes time to wipe down the counter. I fried them on each side twice to hopefully get a double-fried effect – read on to see how that goes.

Look how easy cleaning up is, because everything was done in the tub that the chicken came in – I’m only halfway through the recipe and I already feel like a genius!

Now that the chicken is frying, I can turn my attention to the side dishes, These zucchini get tossed in olive oil, then salted and peppered right on the baking sheet. The pan is already hot because the sweet potatoes have been in the oven for half an hour, so the zucchini will roast nice and quickly. I love how much synergy is going on!

Because the cast iron skillet is so small, even a modest amount of oil comes up to more than halfway up the drumsticks. Here’s how much fry oil was left. Much less than my previous frying attempts, and much easier to get rid of. The black gunk will settle onto the bottom, and I’ll skim a bit from the top each time I cook until I use it up.

Nice! In the pursuit of a double-fried effect, the drumsticks got a bit darker than I was aiming for. I don’t think the coating is thick enough in this case for double-frying to make a big difference, or if I want there to be a double-fried effect I need to let the chicken rest for longer. But then, beauty in this case is more than skin deep…

Look at the insides of the drumsticks. So juicy! This is the effect of frying the chicken on a relatively low heat. The breading doesn’t burn, the heat has time to move through the full thickness of the meat, and the pieces cook gently without drying out.

Keep browsing by categories, or by tags: