The Sweet Ingredient You Should Try For Flavorful Fried Chicken

Fried chicken is an easy food to make — and an easy one to mess up. People often make simple mistakes when frying chicken that throw off the whole dish, such as not waiting for the oil to heat or underseasoning the chicken. But if you want to upgrade your fried chicken like a pro, try playing with the flavors in your wet and dry ingredients. For fried chicken with a sweet twist, add powdered sugar to your flour mix.

Powdered sugar has a reputation as a baking ingredient or being a dusting garnish for bacon and French toast, but it's a creative choice for fried chicken as well. Its sweetness helps balance the salty and acidic flavors from the chicken's marinade and seasoning. Unless you want a dish that tastes closer to funnel cake than fried chicken, you only need to add a little bit of sugar to the flour (unless that's what you're going for). You can use store-bought powdered sugar or try making your own powdered sugar at home.

Fried chicken is a variable dish with no one universal recipe. Chicken nuggets, tenders, legs, and sandwiches might all warrant different techniques. Some recipes only use flour for breading, while others might use Italian breadcrumbs for chicken Parmesan or panko for Japanese chicken katsu. Think of how savory you want your dish to be and adjust the amount of powdered sugar accordingly. Too much may not pair as well with bitter herbal seasonings like rosemary and cumin. However, powdered sugar is a great pairing with paprika, cayenne, garlic salt, and pepper to help balance the spice.

If you plan to use powdered sugar, also take into account the marinade you'd like to use for the chicken. Buttermilk is the obvious go-to, but pour in a little lemon or dill pickle juice for some sour zing. Go country with your cooking by marinating it with a little moonshine or your ol' reliable Pabst Blue Ribbon lager. Your buttermilk marinade will meet powdered sugar's sweetness with ease.

Powdered sugar may be unconventional, but it's worth trying for its flavor and ability to help bind flour and chicken. It gets along with dishes like Nashville hot chicken, but it really shines with chicken and waffles, where you can both add it to the breading and dust it on top of the food when it's done. Drizzle your chicken in honey or maple syrup for an extra sweet-and-savory treat. Fried chicken really can do it all, and thanks to powdered sugar, so can you.