Easy Hot Honey Chicken Recipe | America's Test Kitchen

Hot honey chicken has become all the rage and you see it popping up on menus everywhere, but Morgan's been eating it since you were just a little kid because your grandmother used to make it. Yeah, so this is my grandmother's recipe. Her name was Wanda, but I knew her as Moo Moo. And like many grandmother recipes, it was very short. It was essentially an ingredient list and instructions to bake. So I had a lot of fun channeling her in my cooking for this. So I'm starting with two teaspoons of kosher salt and a teaspoon of cumin, and this is going to be my rub for the chicken. So I'm just going to combine these. So here we have a four and a half pound chicken. I'm going to break it down to get three pounds of pieces. Okay. I always start mine between the drumstick and the breast. So I like to just do a little nick and start to see what I'm doing. And then I use my knife and I actually, I feel like you can actually just sort of follow the natural cuts of the bird. So then I actually take it, flip it over, bend it back. And I use my knife to go along the back side of it. And I like to do the wings. I think this is something I learned actually from Brian Roof. You use the gravity of the bird and then you can kind of go along the natural curve. And I'm not actually using these wings, but these will be a treat for my freezer later. So I'm going to set those aside. I think a lot of people use their knives here. I love just using kitchen shears to get the backbone out. I feel like it's so easy and it's like less risk of cutting yourself. It's always good. Anything that gives me more control. It's great. Okay. That I'm also going to save for stock. And then here you can actually just follow the natural breastbone and you just get your knife as close to one side of that as you can. And then I like to kind of just go in. Sometimes I turn around and use the heel of the knife to get through the thicker part. Nicely done. Thank you. So I always cut the breast in half, but since this side's a little thicker to make it cook evenly, I actually give a little bit more distance down here. So do that. Okay. So now I have three pounds of broken down chicken. So I'm going to just pat it dry. And now I'm just going to season it. This is just that cumin and salt and just sprinkle it all over. Okay. So I'm just going to wash my hands and then we get to start cooking. Okay. Julia, I have a tablespoon of vegetable oil. I've been heating over medium high heat in an oven safe skillet. It's a 12 inch skillet. I really want it to be nice and smoky. So sometimes I actually like get down and make sure I can see some tendrils of smoke. Get on eye level. Yeah. And you can see it's really nice and hot. I see it. So that's just going to help get some nice browning on here. So I'm just going to add this chicken skin side down. Sizzles always a nice sound. And I'm going to let this go four minutes aside until it's nice and brown. Now, while that cooks, I said it's hot honey. We've got the stuff for hot honey here. I have a quarter of a cup of Frank. So this is my own spin. Mumu didn't specifically call for Frank's hot sauce, but I love it because it gives it a little nod to Buffalo chicken. And yeah, it's just delightful. And then, of course, a quarter cup honey. All right. So what was the ratio of hot sauce to honey? Equal parts. Equal parts. Yeah. I want it sweet and hot. Okay. And then I have two minced garlic cloves. And that's pretty much that. I love it. So it's been four minutes and it's looking nice and brown. Gorgeous. I feel like you always want to wait and make sure it's releasing from the pan. Otherwise, you know you haven't gone long enough. If you do it and it's like sticking here, you're like, nope, not long enough. But I'm going to let this go another four minutes on the other side. Get some nice browning, get some fat rendering out and that skin nice and crisp. And then we'll add our honey mixture. Okay. Okay. It's been four minutes and the bottom sides of these guys are looking nice and brown. That's gorgeous. Yeah. So I'm going to pull them over. I'm actually going to keep them skin side up here. I want to keep that skin nice and crisp. And there's not a ton of fat in here, but there's a little bit and it can vary every time you make this. So I do like to pour off the fat just because you can then control the greasiness and we don't want this to be greasy. Okay. So I'm going to add these pieces right back in the skillet. Now it's time to add the hot honey. I'm just going to take our delicious hot honey and drizzle it right over the chicken in the skillet. So it's like a little cloaking of hot honey. So this pan is off the heat, but it's all that residual heat making that sauce bubble. Yeah, exactly. But it's actually helping get up some of that fond, which is kind of nice, but I'm actually not going to keep cooking this on the stove. I'm going to move it to the oven. I'm going to bake this in a 425 degree oven on the middle rack. I'm going to cook it until the breasts register 160 degrees and the thighs register 175 or over is fine. It's going to take 17 to 22 minutes. If the breasts actually hit 160 before the thighs, I might even pull them out because I really don't want the breast meat to overcook. Oh, it's looking so good. Oh, it's bubbling. It is. I know that honey is bubbling. Okay. Like I said, I'm looking for 160 degrees here in this breast and it's 161. Perfect. Yeah. So I might just check a thigh too, just for good measure. Right. The thighs need to be 175 or higher. Yeah. So that's actually 190. So I'm actually going to let this rest in the pan for 10 minutes. The chicken's going to give off a little more juice and then we'll use that to build a sauce. Our hot honey chicken has rested 10 minutes and I'm going to pull this chicken out. Look at those gorgeous drippings. Okay. I'm going to use this to make a nice sauce. So I'm just going to bring this to a boil over medium high heat. Looking for like a glazy consistency. Yeah, exactly. I want it to go just until it's thickened, which is like one to two minutes. Honestly, I think this is looking really good. It's looking nice and thick. Those bubbles are starting to get a little slower, which is a really nice sign. When the whisk goes through it, you can actually see a nice little line. It's what we want. Perfect. So I'm going to reduce this to low and whisk in two tablespoons of unsalted butter that I've cut into two pieces and two teaspoons of lime juice. It adds this nice like punch of acidity. And also I just feel like lime and honey and hot sauce are such a good pair. Such a good pair. The butter is nice and melted and our sauce is glazy. I'm going to pull this off heat and over the chicken this goes. Oh. I know, right? That's beautiful. My mouth has started watering. I know. Really pretty badly. I hope we're doing Moo Moo proud. So I have two scallions that I thinly sliced and I'm just going to sprinkle these over top. Just, you know, a little lipstick to make it look nice and pretty. A little lipstick. That is gorgeous. Yeah, that is really pretty. Your grandmother really knew how to cook. Oh yeah. So what if I give you a thigh? This one looks really nice and glazy. And then maybe a little piece of breast over here too? Yes, please. Perfect. And there's a little extra sauce in there. Can I add a little more to yours? Oh yes, please. Okay. I was hoping you'd ask that. Yeah, I know. I'm like, this sauce, it's like a perfect marriage of hot sauce, honey and chicken juice. I'm like, let's lean in. Thank you. Perfectly cooked thigh. Yeah, I hope it's nice and tender. It's bright right off the bat. I'm going to get the honey and then there's a little kick at the end. That's delicious. Yeah, I feel like the acidity in this between the lime juice and the hot sauce is so nice. But you also get this sweet, it's like a nice sweet heat. Yeah. For full episodes of your favorite cooking shows, head over to ATK's full episodes channel on YouTube. You can stream complete seasons of America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and more. See you there.