Korean Fried Chicken
Fried twice, with a rest between. The first fry cooks it and the second drives off the surface moisture, which is why the coating stays crisp under sauce.
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 35 min
- Resting
- 15 min
- Total
- 1 hr 15 min
- Serves
- 4
- Revisions
- 1
Allergens
- Cereals containing gluten
- Sesame
- Soya
Named from the ingredients as written, including those carried in from sub-recipes. This is not a guarantee — check the labels on what you actually buy, and note that a product’s recipe can change.
Ingredients
Serves
Chicken
Coating
Frying
Sauce
To finish
Method
Chicken
Toss the wings with the wine, salt, pepper and ginger and leave for 15 minutes.
Coating
Pat them thoroughly dry, then toss in the potato starch until every surface is dusted, shaking off the excess.
Potato starch rather than flour. It contains no gluten and fries into a much thinner, glassier, harder shell, which is the characteristic texture of Korean fried chicken and is quite different from the craggy buttermilk-and-flour crust of the American kind.
Frying
Heat the oil to 160C and fry the wings in three batches for 7 minutes each, until pale gold and cooked through.
Lift them onto a rack and leave them for at least 10 minutes.
Raise the oil to 190C and fry each batch again for 3 minutes, until deep gold and visibly hard.
The two fries do different jobs. The first cooks the chicken at a temperature low enough not to burn the coating; the rest lets steam escape from inside; the second, hotter fry drives the remaining surface moisture off and sets a shell hard enough to survive being sauced. One fry cannot do both, and this is why Korean fried chicken stays crisp under a wet glaze when other fried chicken does not.
Sauce
While they rest, simmer the gochujang, honey, soy, vinegar, garlic and sesame oil in a wide pan for 3 minutes until glossy and slightly thickened.
Take the sauce off the heat, add the twice-fried wings and toss until every piece is coated.
To finish
Work fast and serve immediately. The shell is hard enough to hold for a few minutes and no longer.
Scatter with sesame seeds and spring onions.
Nobody has rated this recipe yet.
Sign in to rate this recipe. One rating per person, and you can change it.
What to expect
- Taste
Sweet, hot and deeply savoury from the gochujang, with vinegar cutting through and sesame oil at the end. Gochujang is fermented, so the heat comes with a funky depth that chilli sauce alone does not have.
- Aroma
Frying chicken, then a sharp sweet-hot smell when the sauce goes on.
- Texture
The entire dish. A shell thin enough to be glassy, hard enough to crack, and dry enough to stay crisp under sauce for several minutes.
- Sound
The crack of the first bite, which is what the double fry buys.
- How the flavour moves
Sweetness first, then heat building, then a long fermented savoury finish with sesame at the end.
- Serve it
Very hot, immediately after saucing.
- Goes with
Cold lager — the pairing has a name, chimaek — and pickled white radish, which cuts the richness and is served with it as standard.
Cook's notes
- Difficulty
Moderate. Two fries at two temperatures with a rest is more discipline than difficulty.
- Cost
Low. Wings are among the cheapest chicken there is.
- Equipment
A deep heavy pan, a thermometer and a wire rack.
- When to make it
A Friday, with beer.
- Best season
None.
- You know it is done when
Pale gold after the first fry, deep gold and visibly hard after the second. The shell should look thin and glassy rather than thick and craggy.
- And it feels like
A shell that cracks audibly and stays crisp for several minutes under a wet glaze, which is the whole point of the technique.
- Food safety
Chicken at 74C/165F instantaneous (USDA), or 70C for two minutes / 75C instantaneously (UK Food Standards Agency) — reached during the first fry, so the second is purely about texture. Hot oil: a deep pan no more than a third full, nothing wet going in, a lid within reach.
- Where it goes wrong
- One fry instead of two, which is the whole recipe.
- Skipping the rest between fries, so the second fry fights escaping steam.
- Plain flour instead of potato starch, which gives a thick craggy crust rather than a thin glassy one.
- Saucing in a pan still on the heat, which softens the shell.
- Wet chicken under the starch, which makes it clump.
- Frying too many at once and dropping the oil temperature.
- If it does go wrong
Soggy under sauce: it had one fry, or no rest. Coating clumped: the chicken was wet. Dark and bitter: the second fry was too long or too hot. Sauce sliding off: it needed the full 3 minutes of reducing.
- Making it ahead
Do the first fry up to two hours ahead and hold the wings on a rack; the second fry and the saucing take ten minutes.
- Keeping it
Best immediately. They keep a day.
- Reheating
An oven or air fryer at 200C for 6 minutes. Better than most fried food survives.
- Freezing
Not once sauced. Twice-fried unsauced wings freeze and reheat acceptably.
- Leftovers
Cold, which is genuinely good, or reheated hard and re-sauced.
- Scaling it
Fry in three batches regardless.
- Substitutions
Drumsticks or boneless thigh, both fried a couple of minutes longer. Gochujang has no real substitute; sriracha with a little miso is a distant approximation.
- Dietary swaps
Contains gluten and soya from the soy sauce and gochujang, and sesame. Tamari and a gluten-free gochujang make it gluten free. Dairy free, egg free and nut free, which is unusual for fried chicken.
- Shopping for it
Gochujang and potato starch from a Korean or general Asian grocer, both cheap and both keeping well.
- Keeping the cost down
Wings are among the cheapest cuts and this is a cheap dish for what it delivers. Strain and reuse the oil.
- Sustainability
Chicken has the lowest footprint of the common meats, and wings are the part of the bird with the least demand relative to supply — cooking them takes pressure off breast and is one of the better whole-carcass choices available. The frying oil is the main consideration: strain it through a sieve, reuse it twice, and bin it rather than pouring it away.
- Nutrition
Fried and glazed, and honest about it. Wings are relatively lean under the skin.
- Worth it?
Fry it twice with a rest between. It sounds like fussiness and it is the reason this stays crisp when nothing else does.
Where it comes from
- Origin
South Korea.
- Also called
Yangnyeom chikin for the sauced version; chikin generally.
- Said out loud
yang-nyum CHEE-kin.
- What the name means
Yangnyeom means seasoning or sauce; chikin is the English word borrowed back.
- History
Fried chicken came to Korea with the American military presence after the Korean War, and was adapted rather than copied — the twice-fry, the thin starch coating and the sauced finish are all Korean developments through the 1970s and 80s, alongside the growth of dedicated chicken shops. Chimaek, the pairing of chicken and beer, became a genuine social institution, and Korean fried chicken has since spread worldwide, accelerated considerably by Korean television and film.
- Why it matters
Large. It is a national late-night and social food with its own vocabulary, its own chains and its own place in popular culture.
- When it is eaten
Late night, football, and anything involving beer and several people.
- The traditional way
The double fry, which is the defining technique and is genuinely different from Western fried chicken practice.
- How it changed
From an American import to something quite distinct in about twenty years.
- Regional variations
Soy-garlic and plain 'original' are the two other standards. Snow cheese, honey butter and countless others exist.
- How this version differs
Nothing unorthodox. The reason for the double fry is explained rather than instructed, because it transfers to any fried food.
- Sources and credit
No individual. Several chains claim credit for the sauced version.
Air Fryer Chicken Breast
Air Fryer Chicken Thighs
Air Fryer Whole Chicken
Bibimbap
Butter Chicken
Chicken à la King
Korean
Main courses
Dinner
Chicken