The Fiery Snack That Makes Fried Chicken Even More Flavorful

Whatever flour you use when cooking homemade fried chicken, you've got to season it properly. While there are hundreds, if not thousands, of seasoning suggestions at a chef's disposal, one of the best and easiest solutions only requires you to grind up some a popular snack food: Takis.

It may sound a bit odd, but tossing a bold ingredient into your dry coating to create spicy, acidic fried chicken is nothing new. Spices like chili powder and paprika are amongst the most common flour seasonings used for deep frying, because they retain their flavor and heat even after being dipped in piping hot oil. There are also many international fried chicken styles that incorporate fruity acids from lemons and limes as a way of cutting through the dish's heaviness and brightening up the other flavors. Taki fanatics know there are few snacks on the market that can offer more chili-lime flavor than this chip brand, making it an absolute win for flavor.

The chili-lime flavor profile merely scratched the surface when it comes to Takis — the rolled tortilla chip offers a myriad of other seasonings like salt and dehydrated onion, two more classic fried chicken seasonings. As an unexpected bonus, Takis' bright red color can even serve as an ample warning (or enticement) to dinner guests, letting them know just how spicy their bite is about to be. Including Takis in your standard fried chicken recipes is a cinch, provided you account for how corn flour reacts when fried.

The key to achieving perfectly-prepared Taki-coated fried chicken is to ensure that the chili lime snack is ground as finely as possible – you'll want to opt for a food processor or spend some serious time with a mortar and pestle. If the pieces are too big when cooked, there's a chance they'll absorb oil and get soggy, sabotaging the crunchiness of the fried chicken's final product.

Keep in mind that corn flour, one of the main ingredients in Takis, won't crisp up or get as golden brown as wheat flour. As such, you won't want to use it as your main breading ingredient. Instead, use three parts flour to one part cornstarch as your base and sprinkle in enough Takis powder to infuse it with spicy flavor. The flour does most of the work, but cornstarch always makes fried chicken crispier and does a great job at preventing the chip dust from changing its texture too drastically.

If you want to add even more Takis to the breading, there are plenty of tricks to guarantee a crispy meal. Grab the vodka when you make your batter to inhibit gluten development and keep the flour from becoming too firm. To keep things really simple, always follow the dredging rule for crunchy fried chicken: do it twice. Double-dredging produces more coating which also means more of that chili-lime taste, guaranteeing everyone at the table gets plenty of Takis in every last bite.