Grab This Pantry Ingredient To Make Crispy Fried Chicken Without Flour Or Breadcrumbs

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Fairly recently, we discovered how social media chefs make crispy fried chicken using tapioca flour for a dredge in lieu of all-purpose flour. In a similar vein, although maybe even more accessible, is the idea of using rice flour instead of AP flour or breadcrumbs. Not only will this breading hack deliver some of the lightest, most reliably crispy chicken of your life, but rice flour is also naturally gluten-free. That's a real win for anyone with dietary sensitivities or intolerances.

Rice flour is, as the name suggests, made from milled white rice.The difference between white rice and brown rice comes down to processing, and rice flour is made from white rice that is ground after removing the bran. Although rice flour looks remarkably similar to wheat flour, it behaves differently in cooking because it absorbs less oil. First of all, this ensures that your fried chicken stays crispy for a longer period of time without going soggy. Secondly, the fried chicken may be considered marginally healthier because it doesn't soak up as much grease.

To make rice flour fried chicken, simply season your flour and dredge your marinated or soaked chicken pieces as you normally would. If you don't have access to rice flour at your closest grocery store, you can pick it up online. The highly-rated Anthony's Premium White Rice Flour is unbleached, comes in a three-pound bag, and features no GMOs. Many fried chicken recipes using rice flour call for only a modest amount, so even this relatively small bag should last you for many batches of chicken.

Rice flour in fried chicken is already a cromulent swap in Asia, where both Korean fried chicken (which has wartime origins) and Japanese fried chicken often utilize it in their respective dredges. Many Asian types of fried chicken are coated in a sauce, and the supreme crispiness of rice flour breading stands up to a thick, syrupy coating without turning to mush. If you're planning a glazed fried chicken, don't be afraid of big flavor — season your marinade, your flour, and your sauce for chicken that flies off the plate!

One potential downside of rice flour compared to AP flour is its tendency to brown more quickly. If you don't scrupulously manage the temperature of your pan or fryer, you risk the exterior crisping or even burning before you cook your chicken meat all the way through. A meat thermometer for your chicken or a candy thermometer for your oil can seriously help there. Consider, too, that you can partially pre-cook your chicken before frying, like celeb chef Bobby Flay does.

Another shortcoming of rice flour is that it's usually more expensive than standard wheat flour. We like rice flour because you can fully swap it for AP flour or breadcrumbs, but you can also mix it with all-purpose flour or another alternative starch. You'll save some money and still reap crispy benefits, so long as you don't have a food allergy or intolerance to manage.