Oven Fried Chicken (KFC Copycat)
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My recipe for oven fried chicken has everything you love about crispy chicken with way less hassle. Chicken is marinated in buttermilk, dredged in a batter with 11 herbs and spices, then baked to crispy perfection. This baked version is easier, healthier, and loaded with just as much crunch and flavor!
This recipe for oven fried chicken is one that I had been working on perfecting for a long time. Through much trial and error, I finally came up with the winning formula back in 2014. I’m sharing this again with new updated information, photos and a new video below in the recipe card to see how to make this.
Like any decent KFC copycat recipe, this recipe features a blend of 11 zesty and robust herbs and spices. Instead of going into the deep fryer, however, this chicken gets rendered and crispy right in the oven. This method leaves you with tender, juicy meat on the inside and a delightful crunchy exterior. Plus, it makes both cooking and cleanup easier!
Table of Contents
For more tasty chicken recipes, check out my Habanero Apricot Chicken, Baked Cubano Chicken, and Creamy Chicken Madeira.
- Chicken – I like to use bone-in, skin-on cuts for this recipe, and I use all the different pieces. Using boneless chicken breasts is also an option, but you will need to decrease your cooking time to 10 minutes per side.
- Buttermilk – Keeps the chicken tender and moist while helping the breading stick.
- Panko Breadcrumbs – These light, airy bread crumbs add an extra layer of crunch.
- Butter – Added to the baking pan, this adds an extra layer of crispness and flavor.
- 11 Herbs and Spices – A combination of salt, white pepper, black pepper, celery salt, Italian seasoning, garlic, mustard, paprika, ginger, turmeric, and cayenne make this a true KFC copycat recipe.
- Baking Powder – Gives the seasoning mix an added crunch factor.
To double dip and dredge or not?
- The image above and shows the seasoning and breading I came up with although the photo shows the batch that I double dipped. As in buttermilk marinated chicken, then shake it off, dredge in the seasoned flour and then back in the buttermilk with an added beaten egg and dredged again. Double dipped and ready to bake. Melted butter gets drizzled over each chicken piece and in the oven they went.
- What I found out was this double dredge technique is great if your actually frying the chicken (yes, I tested it that way, too!). It was good (see image below), though the breading was too much and got slightly steamed on the inside while baking. It was crunchy on the outside, but half of it slide off when taking a bite. Not that crunch-tastic fried chicken feel I was looking for.
- While it did indeed taste great, I adjusted the paprika and black pepper and used white pepper for the next batch and liked that better as well only doing one dredge. To get the extra crunch my secret is to add some baking powder to the dredge.
- I prefer how the recipe is listed below in the recipe card (watch the video!), but feel free to experiment if you like!
- Marinate the Meat. Place all of the chicken pieces, skin intact, in a sturdy ziploc bag. Pour the buttermilk into the bag and squeeze out any excess air. Use your hands to massage the buttermilk into the chicken, then place the whole bag in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 30 minutes and up to several hours.
- Mix the Seasoning. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, panko, and 11 herbs and spices. Set the bowl aside.
- Batter the Chicken. Place a 13×9 inch pan in the oven to get hot for at least 15 minutes. In the meantime, remove the chicken from the buttermilk, shaking off any excess. Then, use one hand to dredge each piece in the seasoned flour mix, coating on all sides.
- Transfer to Baking Dish. Drizzle the melted butter into the bottom of the heated pan and arrange each piece of chicken, skin side down, in the pan. Make sure to leave plenty of room so they fry rather than steam.
- Bake Until Crispy. Keep the pan uncovered and bake the chicken for 12 minutes. Flip the pieces over, return the pan to the oven, and bake for another 12 minutes. You may need to add more time for larger pieces, but your chicken will be done when it reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.
- Serve. Remove the chicken from the oven and let it rest for at least 5 minutes before diving in.
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To get the crispiest, crunchiest fried chicken possible, be sure not to overcrowd the baking pan. Air needs to be able to circulate around each piece to get the oven-fried effect we are aiming for.
Make sure that your oven is fully preheated and set to 425 degrees F. Cooking at too low of a temperature will also lead to less-than-crispy results. Don’t forget to preheat the baking pan too!
When dredging and battering your chicken, be sure that you shake off any excess liquid and leave only what you need for the breading to stick.
Since this is a KFC copycat recipe, I like to pair it with homemade versions of some of my favorite KFC sides like Mashed Potatoes, Brown Gravy, and Biscuits.
Oven fried chicken is also tasty with classic comfort foods like Baked Mac and Cheese or with lighter sides like a Classic Caesar Salad. The possibilities are endless!
Cooked leftovers will last for 3-4 days in the refrigerator when stored in an airtight container.
If you end up with lots of leftover fried chicken, freezing is also an option. Arrange cooked pieces on a baking sheet, then place the entire sheet in the freezer and let the chicken flash freeze for about an hour. After that, you can transfer the pieces to a freezer-safe bag and store them for 3-4 months. Be sure to label and date!
When it comes time to reheat the frozen chicken, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place the pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for around 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of your portions.
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Oven Fried Chicken (KFC Copycat)
Ingredients
- 4-5 lbs chicken (See Note 1)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
- 4 tbsp butter melted
Seasoning Blend
- 2 tsp white pepper
- 1 tsp celery salt
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp dried mustard
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- 1/4 tsp cayenne
Instructions
- Place the chicken parts with the skin on in a plastic bag and pour the buttermilk in to coat. Squeeze the air out of the bag and seal. Massage the chicken and buttermilk with your hands to coat evenly and allow to marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes minimum up to several hours.
- Preheat your oven to 425°F. In a medium sized bowl using a whisk, mix together the flour, Panko, baking powder and 11 herbs and spices. Set aside.
- Place a 13×9” baking dish in the oven to get hot for at least 15 minutes (See Note 2). While pan is heating up remove the chicken from the buttermilk, shaking off excess, and dredge in the seasoned flour mixture (See Note 3), coating on all sides with one hand.
- Drizzle the melted butter in the heated baking dish and arrange the chicken pieces skin side down on top of butter (with plenty of room on each side so they “fry” not "steam").
- Bake for 12 minutes, uncovered. Carefully turn the chicken pieces over and bake another 12 minutes or until internal temperature reads 165°F depending on the size of your chicken. (See Note 4) Remove from oven and allow to rest 5 minutes and then serve.
Video
Notes
- I use all parts of a chicken fryer (breasts, wings, thighs and legs). The photos show 6 chicken drumsticks only.
- Avoid glass bakeware as oven temperature and adding of liquid (melted butter) is not something advised per most manufacturers instruction on care.
- When dredging I keep one hand for the wet part and the other for the dry part. This avoids getting clumpy fingers on both hands.
- If using boneless chicken breasts bake/fry 10 minutes per side instead of 12.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
50 years ago my Mississippi born mother was an expert southern fryer of chicken. It took her almost all day to prep the chicken and fry a couple chicken fryers for diner. My recollection after nearly 40 years was that first she used cut up and wash the chicken, then she put it in the refrigerator open on a plate or a paper grocery bag for a few hours to dry out, then she soaking it in buttermilk a couple hours, then she washed most of the buttermilk off tossed out the buttermilk and dipped the chicken pieces in in flour, then put the floured chicken pieces in the refrigerator a couple hours open on a paper bag until the flour got sticky and wet, then dipped she dipped each of them one at a time in egg, then followed by a second dip in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, when she had all the chicken breaded and the pot of oil was hot on the stove, she would fry a few pieces at a time making sure by eye alone that the oil temperature remained hot enough, she did this by only adding so many at a time and watching the chicken carefully as it fried(no fancy thermometer to check the oil temperature). To do to whole chicken fryers worth of chicken pieces she took almost an hour standing over the pot of hot oil with only about 4 pieces of chicken in the oil at any give time. I believe she chicken was cooked when it stopped bubbling out any water and the crust was golden brown and crispy. When she took it out of the frying oil she put it on a couple paper grocery bags to drain the excess oil. We ate it as she got 5 or 6 pieces ready. She are something else before dinner so she was not starving while she cooked. She probably could not stand the sight of chicken at that point anyway. She learned everything from her mother by word of mouth, and by helping when she was young, no recipes. No one would do that much work today, but I cannot stand any other fried chicken at restaurants. It pales by comparison. There may have been salt in the water when she washed the chicken. Using a brine to soak the chicken a few hours could be a good idea too, as it would make the chicken more moist and maybe it could help suck that funk you saw out of the bones and into the brine. Later in life my mother used to say the frozen chicken we buy in the grocery store today is bad because it has black bones. The bones are black because they do not bleed the chicken properly before they freeze it. We are not a Jewish family, but Kosher preparation of chicken involves proper handling of the chicken at slaughter, and a lot of washing and prep of the chicken to make sure it is clean and does not contain blood in the meat or presumably the bones. Look online maybe someone who is Jewish has posted instructions on getting the blood out of modern frozen chicken. Maybe the solution is to buy better handled, properly bled, fresh never frozen chickens, or be satisfied with using boneless breasts, thighs and wings. Good Luck.
A labor of love, right David? Great memories. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
You have an awesome mama <3
And that was when they didn’t have dish washer, dryers (hung laundry on clothes lines), a second car, air conditioning. Those momma’s worked hard at home!!!
First of all, nothing is going to duplicate fried chicken except frying the chicken. Don’t expect any oven fried chicken to duplicate it.
Secondly, two of the Colonel’s main ingredients are sage and thyme which aren’t even part of this recipe. However, there is nothing distasteful with this recipe. The combination of spices still produce a tasty chicken. It’s just not anything like KFC. I added a tsp. of sage and a tsp. of thyme to this mix and got something close to the Colonel’s recipe.
Thirdly, I found the butter milk and the amount of butter to be too much moisture. The chicken never obtained a drier crunchy coating. The coating was too wet and soft. And yes, I did shake off the excess buttermilk. I found using butter to grease the pan and drizzling a little on the chicken to be better than letting it bake in all that butter. However, it was still a little too soft for my liking. I think my next attempt will be to just dredge the chicken first in melted butter followed by dredging it in the flour/spice mix and putting it in the fridge for half hour to set the butter/flour/spice mix. I won’t use any panko or bread crumbs. I think the crumbs are part of the problem. They absorb too much of the butter and keeps the coating too wet. Everything else with this recipe worked for me regarding times and temp. I do add a couple min. to each side if my pieces are larger and plumper.
First there is NO DOUBT that frying chicken really has no substitute, BUT this is a fantastic alternative. Secondly the sage and thyme ARE included in the Italian Seasoning, but you can always adjust the seasonings here to your liking. Glad you came back to let me know your thoughts Wayne, appreciate your input here.
Had 6 good size chicken legs. Took one hour and twenty minutes until 165. They were cooked through and delicious.
So happy to read you enjoyed these Barbara! Those most have been some LARGE chicken legs to take 1 hour and 20 minutes to reach 165°F. Are you at a high altitude?
Mine are cookin right NOW and will take a lot longer than 12 minutes on each side! My elevation is only 5000!
Just be sure the internal temperature on your finished chicken is 165°F and you should be good Kelley. Thanks for giving these a try!
I like your spice flavorings but the outside of my chicken was soggy, gooey and falling off. Tasted good but melted butter in the pan didn’t work with the buttermilk, flour and panko dredging for me. So I went back to the drawing board. I used some rice flour in my pantry that’s been lacking a purpose in life. I cut about 1 tsp of butter into some rice flour with a pastry cutter. That’s my first dredge. I used egg instead of butter milk. Put all your seasonings in with panko. Marinated my chicken in soy sauce and garlic powder like my mom used to do. Then dredge in rice flour, dip in egg, dredge in seasoned panko. Bake 15 minutes on ungreased pan – not butter in the pan, turn, bake another 15-20 depending on how big your pieces are. I use a meat thermometer. This worked for me but you were the inspiration. Thanks for the seasonings!
My only thoughts are there might have been too much buttermilk on the chicken, did you shake off excess? Were they too crowded and steamy in the baking dish? Needless to say I am glad you enjoyed the seasonings. I’ve used rice flour as well sometimes, with the starches it crisps up great. Thanks Madeleine.
I did shake off excess. I’ve been wondering if air chilled chicken vs non – air chilled makes a difference because the latter can leach more water while cooking. I definitely used air chilled the second time with my revised method and my second batch looked just like yours.
So glad your method worked, thanks for the tips Madeleine!
I made this today for my step-dad and he is gonna love them! I dredged them twice in the coating and followed the directions! I used boneless skinless chicken breasts by the way.
We’ve made this twice now, with chicken breasts both times, and absolutely love it.
Thanks Kevin!
Now off to check out your other recipe’s…
Fantastic, so happy to read this Mimi! Cheers 🙂
Do you think the recipe would have the same results with boneless chicken breast?
Yes, I have done this using boneless chicken breasts, just bake/fry 10 minutes per side instead of 12 minutes (depending on chicken breast size), just be sure internal temperature reads 165°F. Thanks for asking Clarissa, I’ve updated the recipes Notes, too.
Just made this and it was DELICIOUS!! The skin got nice and crispy, all the spices blended well together (I would have never thought to put ginger in it!) and nothing stuck to the pan. A quick, easy and yummy meal. Next time I’ll put some veggies in with it. Thank you, Kevin!!
So happy to read this Heather! Appreciate you taking the tie to come back and let me and others know. The ginger is a nice add, right? LOVE spices. 🙂
Husband just had by-pass surgery recently. He is really craving fried chicken and he loves KFC. I am totally new at all this. So, is there a way to make this more healthy for him. I know I can drop the salts but what else can I do. I would really love to make a good healthy dish he would enjoy. It is not something we can do often but maybe once a month, hopefully that won’t do harm.
Hello there! My first thought would be to keep the skin off the chicken and follow recipe as directed, although that really does render down and make it crispy. I also would be sure to use ground celery seed and not celery salt. Hope this help. Let me know!
Hi Kevin,
this recipe is delicious! I made it for my husband and daughter this evening and we all loved it. I used skinless chicken thighs and drumsticks and marinated the pieces in natural yoghurt as I didn’t have buttermilk. I omitted mustard powder as I am in the Uk and I hate English mustard. However i like American mustard and wonder if there is such a thing as American mustard powder?
I cooked the chicken on a pre- heated enameled baking sheet – my only problem was that quite a lot of the coating stuck to the tray as it cooked. Do you have any suggestions on how I can avoid this?
Hi there Tracy! Not sure if there is a difference, you can order online or pick up Coleman’s (one like to use). To make a powder, toast mustard seeds for 30 seconds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Cool the seeds, then transfer to a spice grinder and pulse until you have a fine powder. As for the sticking question, I sometimes get my metal spatula under the chicken in a quick motion and then carefully turn over if it looks like it’s sticking a bit. You did add the melted butter to the heated baking dish and arrange the chicken pieces on top, right? Let me know!
Thanks for taking the time to come back and let me know, too. 🙂