Chicken and Turkey Recipes

 A collection of chicken and turkey recipes from Deep South Dish.

Brining Solution

Chicken and Turkey Recipes

Whole Chickens, Hens & Turkeys



Pot Roasted Chicken with Bacon, Potatoes and Onion

Garlic Roasted Chicken

Lemon Roasted Chicken

Mimi's Rotisserie Style Sticky Chicken

Basic Roast Chicken with Buttery Pan Sauce


Fried Chicken

Southern fried chicken can certainly be challenging - it just takes practice to be honest! If you're new to frying chicken, try frying only dark or white meat your first time. I also like to brine the chicken first - it really helps to keep the breast meat nice and tender.

Classic Southern Fried Chicken

Good ol' southern fried chicken. I don't eat it often, but I can't imagine living without it!

Admittedly, fried chicken is not an easy dish to get down right without practice - and unfortunately, not something we can eat regularly enough to get that practice - and... frankly, it's a mess.

It's a mess to prep, it's a mess to cook, it's a mess to clean up, and then there's all that oil to contend with afterward too.

Given the fact that we have KFC and Popeye's these days, it's not surprising it really isn't made much at home anymore, but... it is so good, that it is something we Southerners certainly deem worthy of all that trouble - at least on occasion. Besides that... have you seen the price of take out chicken today? 

A whole cut up chicken, soaked in a seasoned buttermilk and mustard marinade, then dredged in a seasoned flour, deep fried and finished in the oven. Pictured here with roasted potatoes and black-eyed peas.

Buttermilk Mustard Fried Chicken

Like many Southerners, I love fried chicken, especially when it's prepared well. Although pretty rewarding in the end, it is a little messy frying it at home though and frankly takes practice,  meaning you need to keep making it often to perfect the processes!

You know. Like Grandma did.

For those reasons, lots of folks satisfy those occasional fried chicken cravings with take out these days and while really great fried chicken can be found at sit down restaurants, you can also find it at locally owned gas station counters, at regional grocery store delis like Winn Dixie and Rouses in my neighborhood, at local sit down or take out buffets like Hartz, Cajun's and Broome's and fried chicken places like Popeye's and KFC.

The one problem? Have you seen the prices?

Chicken Fried Chicken with Southern Peppered Milk Gravy

Similar to our beloved southern fried chicken, a boneless, skinless chicken breast is pounded thin, dredged in flour and fried. Served with a drizzle of creamy milk gravy made from some of the pan drippings, it is truly good ole comfort food.

Chicken Fried Chicken

Sounds a little silly doesn't it?  I mean fried chicken is just, well, fried chicken, how could it be a chicken fried chicken? Right?

A Facebook reader posed that very oddity when I mentioned I was making Chicken Fried Chicken for Sunday supper.  It really just refers to the preparation - a method similar to chicken fried steak - and, what sets it apart from traditional bone-in fried chicken.

Picnic chicken, prepared similar to our classic, southern fried chicken, is lightly dusted in a highly seasoned flour then oven fried in butter and set aside to cool completely, before packing for the picnic.

Picnic Oven Fried Chicken

When you see recipes for oven fried chicken it's most often a low fat attempt to recreate deep fried chicken, often using cornflakes as a coating. This is not that.

When you see the term "picnic" fried chicken, it's generally referring to a fried chicken that has been prepped for skillet frying, but is done mostly, if not completely, in the oven. Left to cool, it's delicious at room temperature or straight from the fridge, making it the perfect picnic chicken. This is that.

Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, these fried chicken livers get the classic southern fried chicken treatment, with a hot sauce enhanced buttermilk marinade, followed by a dredge in nicely seasoned flour and deep fried.

Southern-Style Fried Chicken Livers

I know that some of you ran the other way when you saw the title of this post, but y'all... just like a good beef liver and onions, I love fried chicken livers. But I do understand. The Cajun won't touch those either.

So let's just say that this post is only intended for the common lovers of fried chicken livers.

The rest of y'all, hang on!

Main Dish Skillet, One Pot and Stovetop Meals

A collection of skillet and stove top main dish meals from Deep South Dish.

Recipe: Main Dish Skillet and Stovetop Meals

Beef

Homemade Cheeseburger Macaroni Skillet
Southwestern Beef Skillet
Meatballs and Marinara
Skillet Chili Mac
Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy

Fried chicken, skillet cornbread, pimento cheese, collard greens and hoecakes, chicken fried steak, fried green tomatoes, deviled eggs, fried okra and much more. All your Southern Favorites and Classic Old Fashioned Southern Recipes from Deep South Dish.

Southern Favorites and Classic Southern Recipes

Click on the links or photos for the recipes.

Chicken Fried Chicken with Peppered Gravy

How to Make Southern Fried Chicken

Picnic Fried Chicken

Crunchy Saltine Chicken Tenders

Chicken and Gravy

Nubby Fried Chicken Planks

Nubby Fried Chicken Planks - a grown up version of chicken tenders, served here with a homemade chicken gravy, quick fix green beans and a garden salad.

Fried Chicken Planks

What are chicken planks you ask? Well, they are simply chicken tenders for adults!

Seriously though, they are chicken tenders that are pounded thinner, which makes them more appropriate for a fancier fried chicken platform, such as those amazing restaurant copycat recipes, and they cook much faster than traditional chicken breasts, which are typically, well... in my humble opinion, otherwise tasteless! Because planks cook faster, they stay tender and delicious, and no brining is necessary. Yay!

Chicken drumsticks dredged in seasoned flour and a buttermilk and egg batter and prepared in an air fryer.

Air Fryer Fried Chicken Drumsticks

While I don't eat it every day, and I rarely cook it at home anymore because it can be a bit messy, I do LOVE fried chicken.

Absolutely love it.

The chicken is tender. The coating on the deep-fried skin is so deliciously crunchy and loaded with flavor, it may well be my most favorite part. With easy access to places like Popeye's, and our local fried chicken buffet Hartz, fried chicken is The Cajun's and my top comfort food. We probably eat it more often than we should! 

Cuban-Style Creole Fried Chicken - Pollo Frito a la Criolla

Bone-in chicken thighs, marinated in a classic sour orange with onions, and a paste of garlic, oregano, and cumin, then pan seared and gently simmered on the stovetop.

Cuban-Style Creole Fried Chicken

If you're from the south, when you first saw the words "Creole" and "fried chicken" in the title to this recipe, you may have had certain expectations.

A southerner would likely expect any chicken that claims to be "fried chicken" to be one that has been dredged in seasoned flour and deep fried.

A southerner from the Deep South would expect a recipe claiming to be "Creole" to have the typical influences of tomato along with the trinity of onion, bell pepper and celery.

You'll find that neither of those elements apply to this Cuban-Style Creole Fried Chicken!

Cajun Chicken Fricassee - Smothered Chicken and Gravy

Chicken is first lightly fried, then a gravy is prepared with the seasoned flour and pan drippings, the chicken is dunked right in the gravy and slow stewed or baked.

Cajun Chicken Fricassee

This is not your typical fried chicken with gravy, oh no.

While the chicken does indeed get a quick fry, the purpose of frying the chicken is primarily to season the oil and add body to the gravy, so don't expect a crunchy fried chicken end product here.

Gravy is then made from the seasoned drippings and the chicken is dunked right into the gravy and the whole thing is finished stovetop or slow in the oven. Holy fat grams, it is some kind of delicious y'all.

Great eats for your tailgate or family room football party - adult beverages, poppers & fried pickles, pigs in a blanket, meat pies, hot corn dip, classic 7 layer dip, chicken salad, seafood bread, Italian Beef, sliders, po'boys, muffulettas, spicy, fried & BBQ wings, pasta salads, potato salads, hot dog sauce, Latin beef, shredded beef tacos, beans, gumbo, jambalaya, soups, stews, chili & more!

Football Tailgate and Party Foods

Looking for menu ideas for your tailgate or football party? Here's my personal collection of tried and true, all Deep South Dish, all in one spot, best of my best recipes perfect for football foods whether you're tailgating it, or watching the games on your own big screen televison. There's plenty to choose from so no matter who you're rooting for, you're sure to find something here for that menu and to please those those hungry fans.

Bookmark this and check back as I update and add to the collection regularly!

Click here for some Tailgating Food Safety tips.



Beverage

Southern Sweet Iced Tea
Pitcher Perfect Sweet Tea
Party Punch

Chicken Wing Collection

I do love some wings and I don't need a reason to whip up a batch. I make them anytime! Here's my collection of favorite wing recipes, all from Deep South Dish blog, all in one place.

Chicken Wings

Air Fryer Pickle Juice Wings

Tangy, lightly sweet, and perfectly seasoned with layers of flavor from pickle brine, Italian dressing, and a blend of spices.

Air Fryer Lemon Herb Wings

Fresh chicken wings, tossed with lemon, seasonings and herbs and air fried.

Spicy Honey Teriyaki Barbecue Wings

Chicken wings, lightly dusted with seasoned salt, pepper and paprika, brushed with a spicy honey teriyaki marinade and baked.

Air Fryer Naked Chicken Wings

Chicken wings generously seasoned and air fried naked. Saucing optional!

Lemon Pepper Wings

Chicken wings, air fried naked, then tossed in a lemon pepper sauce and finished in the air fryer. 

Pepper Jelly Barbecue Wings

Chicken wings, baked in a barbecue sauce, infused with onion, garlic and pepper jelly, that provides that sweet heat we all love here in the Deep South! 

 

Deviled Wings

Chicken wings with a zing! Meaty chicken wings, coated with a lightly spicy rub and marinated in the fridge for an hour or up to overnight, baked and tossed with a simple, classic buttery hot sauce or tossed in a wing glaze.

Southern Living: A Southern Gentleman’s Kitchen Cookbook Review

Just because I've now published my own cookbook doesn't mean I will stop bringing you new finds around the cookbook world, and here's one that is absolutely perfect for Father's Day!

Fried Chicken Seasoning Blend - my take on the 11 herbs and spices KFC copycat.

Fried Chicken Seasoning Blend

This seasoning blend is my take on the KFC copycat seasonings that can go with any good Southern Fried Chicken. You have to have a commercial pressure fryer to get the texture of KFC's original recipe though and since most of us don't own one of those, we'll have to settle for open fryer chicken, which is more crisp than the original recipe. Still good though!

Add a salt brine for a few hours or use a brief dip in a buttermilk marinade to make it Southern Buttermilk Fried Chicken, if ya like. Simply add buttermilk to a large bowl and sprinkle it with hot sauce - enough to just give it color, or as much as you want! Add the chicken (brined or not) to the buttermilk, let marinade in the fridge a few more hours to overnight. When you're ready to fry, remove the chicken, shake off the excess buttermilk, and dredge it in a mixture of seasoned flour and fry.

Fried chicken legs marinated in a soy and hot sauce blend, dusted with flour and fried.

Marinated Fried Drumsticks

I suppose by now those of y'all who pop by here every so often have probably figured out what my two favorite parts of the bird are. Wings and drumsticks. Love them both, yep I sure do!  Don't get me wrong - I love the rest of the chicken too - those are just my favorites, and drumsticks are a breeze to fry.

This recipe is just a basic fried chicken recipe - yeah, yeah, I know ... it looks like my regular ole Southern Fried Chicken, but I swear it's not! New recipe. New picture. Promise.

Instead of a brine, it is marinated by dipping the drumstick into a mixture of canola and soy sauce, with a bit of hot sauce, seasoned salt and garlic salt for flavor, then dredging it in flour and left to sit in the fridge for awhile. This one was actually inspired by a recipe in Mama Dip's Family Cookbook {affil link}. It adds a nice, delicate flavor and okay, the truth is, it's just another excuse for chowin' down on some fried chicken!

A crunchy crispy oven fried chicken that starts with a buttermilk, lemon and mustard marinade and is finished with a cornflake, Parmesan herb crusting.

Crispy Oven Fried Buttermilk Chicken

Crispy fried chicken really can be had in the oven y'all, and this recipe was inspired by an oven baked chicken recipe I saw in the May 2009 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. I love using bone-in chicken breasts because the bone really does help to produce a very flavorful piece of chicken, much more than those boneless, skinless chicken breasts. There is no surprise that bone-in is very popular in Weight Watchers recipes.

Recipes for Potlucks, Church Socials, Picnics & Reunions and Other Gatherings

From appetizers to main dish, dessert and everything in between, a wonderful collection of great step by step recipes from Deep South Dish, perfect for your next church supper, reunion, potluck or any other gathering.

Potlucks, Church Socials,
Picnics & Reunion Recipe Ideas

Appetizers



Classic Deviled Eggs
Sausage and Cheese Bread
Fried Jalapeno Poppers
The Basic Humble Deviled Egg
Cheese Straws



Pimento Cheese Finger Sandwiches
Basic Sausage Cheese Balls
Spicy Cheese Bites
Crispy Southern Fried Hot Wings with Spicy Dipping Sauce
Cream Cheese & Hot Pepper Jelly
Grape Jelly Cocktail Meatballs

A classic, cold salad made from carrots, raisins and pineapple, sometimes coconut and peanuts, and dressed with a sweetened mayonnaise.

Classic Carrot Raisin Salad

We are still in the process of moving out of our old home, while the new house is looking more and more like we have lived here for 20 years! And the garage, oh you don't even want to know what that looks like, but as I have the energy, I bring in a box and go through it.

We are moving all of the Christmas stuff, the china from the china cabinet and have a freezer and a few pieces of furniture to go and we'll be finished... finally. The Cajun and I were so tired and hungry yesterday afternoon that we stopped by Hartz's Fried Chicken and treated ourselves to their buffet for an early supper.