Great-Grandma Myrtle's Buttermilk Fried Chicken
If there’s one thing my Great-Grandma Myrtle knew how to do it was to feed a hungry family on a budget, and this buttermilk fried chicken is proof that frugal food can taste amazing!
Why I Love This Recipe
My Great Grandma grew up and raised nine children during the Great Depression and she passed down a thing or two about cooking from scratch and using what you have on hand. That’s one reason I love this buttermilk fried chicken recipe so much because the dredge you create for the chicken can be used on countless other foods.
Dredge your steak, pork chops, gizzards, even veggies, and fry them up the same way!
And grandma’s frugal tip? Save the oil! Since you’ll be heating it back up to 350 degrees, you don’t need to worry about the flecks of flour or brown bits remaining in the oil from the previous use.
Supplies Needed
This recipe doesn’t require loads of fancy kitchen tools or appliances. Just the basics will do for this buttermilk fried chicken:
A heavy-bottomed pan with lid - I love using the same cast iron pan Great-Grandma Myrtle cooked in all those years ago to feed her own family!
Spatula or Wooden Spoon - Years ago I remember seeing my Great Grandma cook with a slanted wooden spatula that fits perfectly in her cast iron pan. I wish I had her utensils, but I determined to recreate those tools to use in my own kitchen. If you want to carve your own, be sure to check out my post on carving a cast-iron spoon.
Stainless steel spider strainer/skimmer - This tool is optional, but I find it very handy for slowly lowering the chicken and veggies into the oil to reduce the chance of hot oil splatters. It’s also great for taking the fried foods out of the pan and allowing the excess oil to drip back into the pan, rather than onto the paper towel (or your kitchen counter).
Ingredients Needed
Frying Oil - It’s important to choose an oil that has a high smoke point (burn point) to avoid the oil going rancid while cooking. Because we need the oil to get up to 350 degrees F°, this leaves avocado oil, corn oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, ghee, lard, and coconut oil (if you’re careful not to allow the coconut oil to go over 350 degrees F°).
Chicken - If you can part out a whole chicken this will save you even more money, and it’s what was done during the Great Depression, usually from chickens they raised themselves, but if you don’t have whole chickens available to you, I love legs and thighs and they tend to be the least expensive at the grocery store.
Buttermilk - Great Grandma always used buttermilk, you know the real stuff that’s actually been cultured. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can easily make it by combining milk and an acidic medium such as apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. Stir together then let it sit for about 5-10 minutes to thicken up.
Dredge - You have a lot of options when it comes to making a dredge. Great Grandma would typically use flour, but if she happened to have extra bread crumbs that needed to be used, she’d add those to the dredge as well for a little extra crunch. I love adding some crushed-up Crispix to my dredge, but this is purely optional!
How to Make Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour (bread crumbs work, too)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder (or onion powder, etc.)
1 tsp white pepper (black pepper works, too)
1 handful (1/2-1 cup) Crispix cereal, crushed
2 cups buttermilk (or 2 cups milk with 1-2 tablespoons ACV or lemon juice)
8 pieces of chicken (I like legs and thighs)
1. Heat the Oil
The oil is going to take the longest to heat up, so I like to add about 3-4 cups of oil to my pan (depending on your pan size) and get that heating over high heat. Using a thermometer, heat the oil to 350 degrees F°.
2. Prep the Chicken
Meanwhile, take your chicken out of the refrigerator because room temperature chicken cooks up faster than cold chicken. This will make it easier to get a golden-brown crust on the outside of your chicken, rather than it burning because your chicken isn’t done cooking through.
You’ll also want to dry your chicken well using paper towels so the buttermilk coating really sticks well to the chicken.
3. Make the Dredge
Crush your Crispix cereal in a gallon-size ziptop bag. Then combine the flour, salt, cayenne, paprika, garlic powder, pepper and crushed Crispix cereal into a bowl and whisk well. Keep the flour mixture in the bowl, or pour it into the ziptop bag for easy dredging/shaking.
4. Coat the Chicken
Take one piece of chicken at a time and dunk it into the buttermilk, then drop it into the flour dredge, coating all sides well. Place each piece off to the side on a plate or pan until all pieces are coated.
5. Cook the Chicken
Carefully place each piece of chicken into the 350-degree oil. Add the lid and allow the chicken to cook for 5-15 minutes per side (depending on how large your pieces are). Check the internal temperature of your chicken with a thermometer and remove it from the pan using a spider spatula allowing any excess oil to drip back into the pan.
Place the chicken on a cooling rack with a paper towel lining the counter underneath (to catch any extra drips of oil). Let chicken rest for 10 minutes while cooking up your fried veggies!
Share With Family & Friends!
One of the best things about fried meals is that they’re extremely filling and you can tend to get away with less overall food to feed more people. So invite the ones you love to join you in your meal!
Make it a Meal
Fried Veggies
Taking lessons from the Great Depression, we always want to use the things we have on hand whenever possible. For me, that means zucchini, okra, and green tomatoes!
Save those ends, stems, and veggies scraps in a bag to either feed the animals or save them in the freezer to use in homemade bone broth.
Follow the same methods of dredging your veggies by dipping them into the buttermilk, then dredging in the flour mixture.
Carefully lower the veggies into the oil by using a stainless steel spider strainer.
Banana Cream Pudding
You can’t have a delicious fried dinner without an equally delicious dessert! One of my go-to desserts is this banana cream pudding. It’s easy to whip up and uses up the extra milk we typically have on hand from our milk cows.
If you want to learn how to make this recipe, plus simple cheeses, yogurt, ice cream, butter, and so much more, head on over and grab my Homemade Dairy Course! #momofalltrades and I filmed multiple video tutorials to teach you the basics needed to turn milk into delicious homemade products.