Honey Butter Fried Chicken

Is butter good for frying chicken?

Yes. And it’s amazing. Butter does have a lower smoke point than frying oil, so you’ll have to fry the chicken at a low temperature. If the butter gets too hot, it will start smoking and breaking down. This will affect the flavor of chicken so you definitely want to avoid this.

Since the smoke point of butter is 350º Fahrenheit, I chose to keep the butter temperature at around 300 degrees F.

Prep Honey Butter Fried Chicken Ahead

In order to keep this recipe quick and easy for busy evenings, there are three things you can do:

• Prepare the chicken the night before. Place the trimmed and flattened chicken in a bowl with buttermilk and allow it to tenderize overnight. If you’d like, you can use chicken thighs, chicken wings, drumsticks or use chicken tenderloins for fried chicken tenders. Kids love those chicken strips!
• Whip up the honey butter in advance. Whether it is the night before or a couple days in advance, you can mix up honey butter ahead of time so it is ready to quickly brush on chicken. Just make sure you keep your eye on it because it’s amazing on biscuits, english muffins and homemade pancakes. It can disappear quickly!
• Mix up the dry ingredients. Again, you can mix these dry ingredients for the flour coating several days in advance. Store in an airtight container at room temperature and pull it out when you need ready to dredge the chicken.

Tips for Making Honey Butter Chicken

• Pound the chicken breasts to an even thickness so that they cook quickly and evenly. Store bought chicken breasts can be large, so this helps to keep the recipe quick. Use meat mallet to pound the thicker parts of the chicken.

• What does buttermilk do for chicken? It tenderizes the chicken and keeps it juicy. You’ll need to plan at least 8 hours to soak the chicken, but no more than 24 hours. You’ll also love our buttermilk fried chicken and buttermilk fried pork chops.

• Coat the chicken in the flour mixture, then buttermilk, letting excess drip off, then the flour mixture again. Then let the chicken rest for 20 minutes. This will allow that “batter” to thicken up  and stick on your chicken instead of falling off in the pan.

• Fry in batches. It’s important to not overcrowd the chicken for even cooking, so fry a couple pieces of chicken, then repeat with remaining chicken.
• Use an internal probe thermometer to check the chicken. You can remove it from the skillet to the wire rack when it is 165º Fahrenheit inside. For juicy chicken, do not overcook.

Honey Butter Glaze for Chicken

You’ll find many different recipes out there for honey butter, but I found only two ingredients were needed: honey and butter. Brilliant, right? I use an equal amount of honey and butter for this whipped butter glaze. If you’d like it less sweet, add about ½ the honey.

Use salted butter for the honey butter. The small amount of salt in the butter enhances the flavor.

Once the chicken comes out of the frying pan, brush the honey butter over top the chicken for an unbeatable sweet & savory flavor.

What to Serve with Honey Butter Fried Chicken

Serve this honey butter fried chicken over a bed of mashed potatoes. As that butter soaks down from the chicken, it will hit the potatoes and trust me. It’s SO good.

You could also serve the hot fried chicken on a biscuit as a sandwich or with a side of asparagus, or baked potatoes. Bake dinner rolls or a corn muffin go well with that extra honey butter, too.

Reheating Instructions

There are two different options:

• Air fryer. If you have an air fryer, it is easy to reheat chicken in that. It should only take about 5 minutes to heat it through and get that breading crisp again. This is how my son does it.
• Oven. Preheat the oven to 400º Fahrenheit. Allow the chicken to rest at room temperature while the oven heats. Place a wire rack on a baking sheet and put the chicken on top. Then heat for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how large the chicken pieces are.