Not Plain Salt And Pepper: The Classic Spice That Makes Fried Chicken Even Better

In the 1980s, syndicated home economics columnist Heloise advocated for adding a few drops of yellow food coloring to oil to make fried chicken golden. We love a good kitchen hack, but we also know another way to produce buttery-looking fried chicken without artificial dyes. One such idea is curry powder, which has the primary benefit of making your poultry intensely flavorful when stirred into a fried chicken marinade or mixed into the breading.

Curry powder fried chicken has considerable social media support, and with good reason. There are several types of curry powder, which may be divided along geographic lines (Thai, Jamaican, and Indian curry, for instance) or the type of meat it's intended for, like "meat" or "fish" curry. The ones with a golden hue often use turmeric as the yellow element. Regardless of what precise blend you favor, curry powder provides a big, concentrated blast of flavor in one bottle, which can take much of the guesswork out of seasoning your chicken. To crib from a popular meme, why use many bottles when there's one that can do the trick by itself?

We're always fans of unique spices that can give your dishes pizazz, and using curry powder in fried chicken definitely fits the bill. The inspiration for this simple trick may be rooted in Malaysian mamak fried chicken which is packed with spices in its marinade and is sometimes colored with red dye. You don't need to turn to artificial coloring to give your fried chicken a burst of flavor with some bold international influence; just reach for the bottle that you might already have in your spice cabinet.

We're of the belief that curry powder shouldn't be limited in use to biryani or tagines. We love curry powder as a seasoning in egg salad, for instance — and we bet you weren't expecting that one! Fried chicken is a great example of a dish that home cooks might never initially think to tie together with curry powder, but which actually makes a ton of sense when you consider the issue. Fried chicken, being dense in breading and heavy with grease, stands to soak up a lot of seasoning. Curry powder provides a powerful hit of spices that might overwhelm simpler dishes but stands up to the richness of fried chicken.

To amplify the effects of your curry powder, you can always add to the spice blend by playing up components of the mix that you already enjoy. Curry powder often contains warming spices like ginger and nutmeg, for instance. Add a few more shakes from your spice cabinet into your chicken soak or breading to elevate that warming effect. On the other hand, if you like some heat in your meat, punch up the blend with red or black pepper. Extra garlic? Don't mind if we do!

You can incorporate a dash or two of curry powder into just about any fried chicken prep method that you already like. This works just as well for shallow-fried pan chicken as it does for poultry cooked with a classic deep fry. Feel free to take another page from the book of Asian fried chicken and incorporate rice flour into your dredge for inimitable crunch in your breading ... you might never go back to plain fried chicken again!