Chick-Fil-A. When it comes to fast food, we all know that Chick-Fil-A provides both top tier service and a top tier product, a rare combination for a fast food chain. Whether you’re a fan of the classic Chicken Sandwich or a fiend for their Chicken Minis, you will almost always leave Chick-Fil-A smiling and satisfied. However, as Highschool students, eating at Chick-Fil-A weekly has the potential to create a sizable dent in the savings accrued from our weekend jobs. Therefore, we are faced with the internal struggle between blowing our money on fast food now or saving our money to blow it on fast food in college. At long last, your loyal staff writers at the Talon have come up with a viable solution that will help you to save money and impress your friends with culinary know-how.

After weeks of research and extensive trials, we have finally found the perfect balance of flavors and textures to almost perfectly recreate the Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich. And what better to compliment such an iconic Sandwich than the fries and sauce that we all know and love. That’s right, you’re about to learn how to cook not only the Chicken Sandwich of the Lord Himself, but also fresh waffle fries and that sweet, tangy Chick-Fil-A sauce. If you follow our easy to read recipe, we are more than certain that the dish you create will satiate your Chick-Fil-A needs without emptying your pockets. So strap in and prepare yourself for the culinary enlightenment of a lifetime. We’ve included our perfected recipes and recounts of our own trials.

Sandwich Recipe

Ingredients:

Flour Mix                                                                     Egg mix

• 1 cup all-purpose flour                                          1/2 cup milk
• 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar                            1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1-2 teaspoons cayenne pepper *optional*

Directions:

1. Marinate 4 chicken breast halves in ½ cup pickle juice and ¼ cup of water in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes (the longer the better). This gives the chicken that slight sour taste as well as helps with keeping the chicken moist.

2. Combine flour, powdered sugar, paprika, pepper, chili powder, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. For a spicy chicken sandwich, add 1-2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper.

3. Beat milk and eggs together in a separate bowl.

4. Dip each chicken breast half in the egg mix, letting excess run off.

5. Cover generously in the flour mix, leaving no wetness.

6. Repeat steps 4 + 5. Double dip means double crispy.

7. Fry the chicken in hot oil, 3-4 minutes on each side, pat dry when done

8. Assemble the sandwich. Put fried chicken, pickle slices and Chick-Fil-A sauce on a toasted and generously buttered hamburger bun.

Tips:

The thinner pieces cook evenly and thoroughly, not creating too burned of an outside or raw of an inside. To avoid this setback, lower the heat of the pan and check the inside with a meat thermometer (170 F is evenly cooked). For an especially thick cut, place the chicken breast in a plastic bag and beat with a mallet to thin it out. Be sure to cut into each piece after removing it from the pan to check if the center is raw. If so, simply wrap it in tin foil and place in the oven on low for a few minutes.

Waffle Fries

Ingredients:

• 5 large Russet Potatoes
• Peanut oil
• Coarse Sea Salt

Directions:

1. Using either a mandolin set to a waffle setting or a crinkle cutter, slide each potato across the blade. After each cut, rotate the potato 90 degrees to get the criss-cross shape. Place the cut fries in a bowl of room temperature water to avoid browning. Frozen waffle fries will also work.

2. Fill a high walled pot with roughly an inch and a half of peanut oil and heat on high for a 2-3 minutes.

3. Place several waffle fries in the oil, making sure to keep them from touching or stacking.

4. Fry each side for 90 seconds until golden brown.

5. Remove, pat dry and generously salt.

Tips: Be gentle with the fries when inserting them and moving them around for the first few minutes as they will easily break up at this point. In order to make sure that the fries are crispy, the oil has to be hot and bubbling before they go in. Lastly, the more salt the better.

Chick-Fil-A sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce ( We used Sweet Baby Ray’s)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together and stir thoroughly. Use hand mixer if needed.

2. Let sit for 30 minutes for full flavors to emerge.

Our Sandwich 

After letting our chicken breasts marinate for a generous amount of time, we battered each piece, being sure to only use one hand for the wet mix and the other for the dry. The thinner pieces were easy and cooked thoroughly without needing to stay in very long. We had some trouble with the thicker ones, but using our tips above we were able to maintain the crispiness of the outside while thoroughly cooking the inside. Our sandwich was fairly similar, lacking only in the categories of buns (not soft enough) and pickles (too crunchy).

Our Waffle Fries

At first we thought it may be difficult to recreate waffle fries given their complex shape and intricate ridges. However, using the crinkle cutter technique, we were able to successfully achieve the desired shape that makes Chick-Fil-A fries stand out. We found that our fries matched the fast food giant’s in both crispiness and quality, but were different in salt, most likely due to our use of a coarser grain. Overall, our fries were just as good, if not better, than Chick-Fil-A’s.

Our Sauce

Luckily, we found the sauce to be the easiest part of this recipe. Our sauce was almost indistinguishable from that of Chick-Fil-A in terms of taste and texture but lesser so in color.  While it may not share the vibrant yellow hue that the original Chick-Fil-A sauce adorns, this was simply due to a lack of artificial coloring in our recipe. If you want a simplified version of the sauce, just mix the mayo, barbecue sauce, honey and mustard for a very similar taste. One final tip is to make sure to use a bowl with plenty of room to whisk the sauce to ensure all ingredients are evenly mixed. This part of the recipe is easy, uses household ingredients and is a must try for those who love Chick-Fil-A sauce and would be willing to eat it with any meal.

Overall, it was a success.