Hot Sauce Batter Is The Key To Elevated Chicken And Waffles

Who doesn't love the crispy, golden crust, the tender, juicy interior of fried chicken, and the buttery fluffiness of waffles, all topped off with rich maple syrup? Chicken and waffles is a dish that can be served at pretty much any time of day. But just because it's a delicious dish alone doesn't mean it can't stand a few enhancements here and there.

One way to enhance the dish is with hot sauce. We don't mean adding a few drops of Tabasco onto the chicken alongside the maple syrup or just replacing the maple syrup altogether with a bottle of Frank's RedHot. While those are very good ways to incorporate a little extra heat into this sweet and savory dish, the method we're discussing has you infuse your waffle batter with a healthy dose of heat. 

You won't need any special equipment or ingredients for this. All you'll need is your waffle recipe of choice, your trusty waffle iron, and your favorite brand of hot sauce.

You'll first need to make a hot sauce batter to make hot sauce-infused waffles. To begin, assemble your dry ingredients — flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Once they have been combined, mix your wet ingredients — butter, eggs, and milk — in a separate bowl before gently mixing them with the dry ingredients to form your basic waffle batter.

Now that the batter is ready, you can add your hot sauce. While the suggested amount should give the waffles a subtle aftertaste of heat, there should also be enough to complement the other flavors of the dish. If you want chicken and waffles that are full of spice, you can add more than a few tablespoons to the batter. If you prefer your waffles to have a little less heat but more sweetness, add a few drops of hot sauce and add extra sugar to pair with it. Once the batter is to your liking, prepare the waffles as usual.

The key to these waffles is finding the right balance of spicy, something that will go nicely with the savory fried chicken and sweet syrup.

Let's say that you like the idea of having spicy chicken and waffles, but you don't have any hot sauce in the house. Fortunately, you can still get your sweet and spicy on by making homemade hot honey.

Hot honey, as the name implies, is honey with a bit of heat. To make hot honey at home, you'll need some honey and your choice of either pepper or chili flakes. Pour the honey into a saucepan and warm it over medium heat. As the honey begins to simmer, stir in your chili or pepper flakes, tasting every so often to gauge if you should add more. Once the honey is hot enough to your liking, cut the heat and pour the honey into jars for later use. This hot honey can serve as a replacement for the maple syrup, spooned over chicken and waffles to give that same spicy flavor.