What Is Hot Chicken and Why Is It Everywhere These Days?

Hot chicken seems to be everywhere these days, and if you are looking for the bird with the burn, you can find it at food trucks, casual sit-down restaurants, fast food joints, and even with ice cream on top! But what exactly is hot chicken? Is it chicken wings? Is it spicy, bone-in chicken? Is it kicked up chicken breast? Or is it a combination of all of those? Let’s take a look at the origins of this spicy dish and see where you can go to give it a try.

What Is Hot Chicken?

In truth, hot chicken can be any form of the bird that has some spice, but I am considering the version that had its origins in Nashville. This is typically a breaded and fried breast filet or tenders that have spicy seasonings and sauce/paste added to bring the burn. It allegedly has its origins in the African-American neighborhoods of Nashville, TN, first appearing on the menu at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, which was founded by James Thornton Prince in 1945.

One of several stories accounting for the first appearance of the dish claims that Thornton came home late one night too many, and his girlfriend cooked up his favorite fried chicken extra spicy to get revenge. However, he liked what she made and eventually started up a restaurant with that on the menu. This originally used bone-in chicken (and it is still served that way at Prince’s Hot Chicken today), but as the dish started to become popular across Nashville, the boneless version became more common.

Why Is It So Popular Today?

Hot chicken was mostly a regional favorite for many years, but as the restaurant industry learned that it was a relatively inexpensive protein that was popular with customers, they started to feature it more prominently on their menus. Hot wings may have been the first version of kicked-up chicken that started to take the nation by storm, but variations on the Nashville hot have become almost as ubiquitous.

Hot Wings Got It Started: Hot wings trace their origins back to Buffalo in the 1960s (though they have been around longer than that), and they started to become popular nationally (known as Buffalo Wings) in the 1980s and 1990s because of chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingstop. Nowadays, you can find them—bone-in and boneless varieties—on the menu of practically every casual sit-down restaurant and most fast food joints, and they helped to spur the popularity of chicken with a kick.

Fast Food Chicken Sandwich Trend: The fast food chicken sandwich has been around since at least the 1960s when Chick-fil-A got its start. But it was in 2019 when Popeyes rolled out its chicken sandwich (including a spicy version) that this trend took the fast food industry by storm. Pretty much every fast food place added their own chicken sandwich to the menu (both regular and spicy), or tried to re-emphasize what they had already been selling for years (like Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, and Jack in the Box). Nashville hot chicken was already starting to gain popularity by this point, and it became even more prominent once the nation’s consumers developed a taste for spicy chicken sandwiches.

The Chicken Boom: Right on the heels of the fast food chicken sandwich trend is the fact that the restaurant industry has really been pushing the bird lately. Chicken is affordable, high in protein, and appeals to many of the current diet trends. It is also a milder meat, so it lends itself well to getting spiced up. You will notice that most of the spicy options in restaurants these days are some form of chicken, and that trend does not appear to be slowing down, especially with the love of bold, shareable experiences among Gen Z and Millennials.

Food Shows: Many of our current food trends can be traced to food shows and social media influencers, and that is a good thing. Shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Food Paradise have prominently featured hot chicken and certainly helped its popularity. These shows have managed to identify many regional favorites and bring them more attention, and in the case of hot chicken, they bolstered a love people were already developing for spicy poultry.

Dave’s Hot Chicken: This place got its start as a food stand in East Hollywood in 2017 and quickly turned into a sensation. It expanded into a brick-and-mortar restaurant chain and spread across California and into the rest of the country, and it was just sold to Roark Capital for $1 billion, which is set to grow the company even more. Dave’s also set the template for many of the hot chicken places out there, focusing on tenders and sliders and offering various heat levels, including at least one in the nuclear range (you can read my review of Dave’s here).

Where Can You Get Hot Chicken?

These days, it seems like you just need to throw a rock and it will land near a restaurant, food truck, or fast food place selling hot chicken of some sort. But here are a few chains that are making waves across the country:

Dave’s Hot Chicken: This place had a lot to do with getting the trend going, and it now has locations globally. Its menu is pretty simple, serving spicy chicken tenders on toast or in slider buns with a few sides and also milkshakes. They currently have stores across multiple states, and you can check for a location near you at their website.

Houston Hot Chicken: This chain, which got its start in Houston, TX, is very similar to Dave’s, though they also offer salads, loaded fries, and other options. Interestingly, they only have a few locations in Houston at the moment, and they are mostly concentrated on the West Coast beyond that. But the chain is expanding and may have a location in your area soon. You can check their website for nearby stores, and you can read my review here.

Urban Bird Hot Chicken: his is another expanding chain that got its start in Houston, TX, and follows a template similar to Dave’s. They are only in Texas at the moment, but they are expanding, and you can check for locations at their website.

Joella’s Hot Chicken: This place got its start in Louisville, KY in 2015, and it has grown to nine locations currently in the Midwest. You can check for a store near you at their website.

Prince’s Hot Chicken: If you want to try the original stuff, you will have to travel to Nashville or nearby. The place that got Nashville hot chicken started has locations throughout that city as well as one in Knoxville, TN, and Greenville, SC.  You can check out their menu and locations at their website.

Local Food Trucks and Restaurants: If one of the big chains is not around you, no need to fret. Just do an internet search for hot chicken in your area, and you will likely find several food trucks and local restaurants that feature it on the menu. And we should always do what we can to support our local businesses.

How Do You Make Hot Chicken?

Making hot chicken is very similar to making fried chicken, you just spice it up more. Below is a composite recipe from the internet, and this delivers about a Medium level of heat on my scale. Feel free to spice it up to your heat tolerance.

Ingredients:

For the Chicken

3 boneless chicken breasts (Cut into three tenders each)

2 cups buttermilk

2 tsp hot sauce (like Tabasco or Frank’s RedHot)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Neutral oil (like canola or peanut) for deep-frying

For the Hot Oil Paste

1 cup hot frying oil (taken from the fryer after cooking the chicken)

3 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp chili powder

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

For Serving

Sliced white sandwich bread

Dill pickle chips

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix the buttermilk and hot sauce. Submerge chicken pieces and marinate in the fridge at least 4 hours (overnight is best).

Mix the flour and other spices in a shallow dish. Heat oil to 325°F (163°C) in a deep skillet or Dutch oven. Dredge each chicken piece in the seasoned flour. Fry chicken until golden brown and cooked through (165°F internal temp), about 10–12 minutes. Drain on a wire rack over a sheet pan.

For the spicy paste, carefully ladle 1 cup of the hot frying oil into a heatproof bowl. Stir in cayenne, brown sugar, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper until smooth and deep red. Brush or spoon the hot oil paste generously over the crispy chicken.

Serve on slices of bread (toasted if you prefer) and top with dill pickle chips.