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What is Korean fried chicken?
This is one of the crispiest, tastiest, fried chicken dishes that we’ve ever tried. We’ve tried our hand at classic Southern fried chicken (which is still great), but this sweet, spicy, tangy version is just sooooo good that we can’t help but keep making it.
Korean fried chicken is one of those recipes that we tried on a whim one night. We were curious about it, so we looked it up online, made some celiac/coeliac and allergy adaptations, and created something that we loved so much that it’s one of our go-to recipes. One of the best parts of making Korean fried chicken is that you don’t actually have to batter the chicken; instead, you just need to do a flour dredge before frying.
There’s some food prep involved in making this recipe, but it’s definitely not hard to make once you get the hang of it. Plus, if you make extra Korean BBQ sauce or have leftover chicken, you won’t be upset about it.
The allergy substitutes
In order to make this recipe allergy-friendly (to suit Isabelle’s needs, and even more sometimes), we had to make some choices. For one, we had to sub out soy sauce with coconut aminos. We’ve talked about coconut aminos a few times before (like in this post) and it’s definitely still one of our favorite finds.
The base for the Korean fried chicken BBQ sauce is ketchup. Because Isabelle can’t have corn syrup or white vinegar, we use the Hellman’s real ketchup, which is made with honey. You can also make your own ketchup if you want to, which we have done when we’ve had multiple allergies to contend with.
In terms of frying the chicken, we use a mix of gluten-free flour (we use this one, but you can choose whatever suits your needs), and rice flour. You could use rice flour alone if you wanted to. The only one we don’t suggest is coconut flour because it burns so easily. We also fry the chicken in canola oil, but you can use whichever high-temp safe oil suits your needs.
Aside from these substitutes, you can also swap out (or leave out ingredients) if needed. We use sesame seeds in our Korean fried chicken, but you can leave them out if you have a sesame allergy.
How to make Korean fried chicken
*This recipe for Korean fried chicken serves up to 4 people. We have made it for larger and smaller groups, so adapt as needed.
Ingredients
- 2 lb chicken thighs (boneless & skinless)
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1 tbps coconut aminos/soy sauce
- 1 tbsp chili flakes (add more or less to taste)
- 1 large onion
- 4-6 cloves of garlic
- Salt & pepper (to taste)
- 3/4 cup gluten-free flour
- 1/4 cup rice flour
- 2 cups canola oil (for frying – adapt amount to size of pot/pan)
Directions
- At least 8 hours before you plan to make this dish, cut up the chicken thighs into 3 or 4 pieces each, like boneless wings.
- Dice up your onion and mince your garlic. Add to the chicken thighs in a large ziploc bag or other sealed container. Add salt and pepper. Leave to sit in the fridge.
- While the chicken is marinating, make the BBQ sauce. You can make this right before you fry the chicken, but the longer you leave the sauce to sit the deeper the flavor.
- In a saucepan on low-medium heat, combine the ketchup, sugar, vinegar, chili flakes, sesame seeds, and coconut aminos/soy sayce. Stir together over the stove until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat once the sauce bubbles and set aside.
- When the chicken is done marinating, remove from fridge.
- Heat the oil in a deep pot on medium heat while you dredge the chicken.
- Combine the gluten free flour and rice flour in a bowl with salt and pepper. Dip each piece of the chicken into the flour dredge and coat thoroughly.
- Fry the pieces of chicken for 4-6 minutes total. You might need to do multiple batches in the fryer (we usually do 3-4 for this amount of chicken). When it’s done cooking, place on a plate with a paper towel to drain.
- Once all the chicken is done cooking, coat with the sauce and serve.