Copycat Popeyes Chicken Sandwich Recipe

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If you missed the release (or re-release) of Popeyes chicken sandwich, you're not alone. Things got kind of crazy out there, with managers working serious overtime hours, people fighting in the streets, and a woman inexplicably destroying her car trying to pass other cars in the drive-thru line. 

All for what: A chicken sandwich? Well, a chicken sandwich you can get on a Sunday, anyway.

Popeyes might have run out of sandwiches (at least in some locations), but you can still get your hands on one — from the comfort of your home, no less. We taste-tested the real deal before heading to the kitchen to try to replicate it. We identified a few key ingredients — the buttery, brioche bun and crispy pickles were pretty easy to figure out — but had to use our culinary investigative skills to determine the rest of the ingredients. 

Did our copycat Popeyes chicken sandwich turn out anywhere close to the original? Read on to find out.

Fast food hamburgers are often characterized by sesame seed buns, but that won't work when creating the perfect Popeyes chicken sandwich. Part of what makes this sandwich so damn good is its soft, buttery bun. Sure, any bun becomes rich and flavorful when it's griddled with butter, but what makes brioche so delicious is that it's made with butter.

Most bread recipes call for milk, butter, and eggs, but brioche recipes contain a lot of those last two ingredients. According to the Kitchn, brioche dough is enriched with extra butter and eggs, giving it a rich, buttery flavor that's similar to cake. It's not sweet, though, which makes it a perfect bread to pair with savory meats like fried chicken. The textural contrast between the soft brioche bun, the crispy chicken, and crunchy pickles is just about perfect, too.

If you can't find brioche, sweet Hawaiian buns are the closest substitute, but they're notably sweeter than brioche. You could use a potato bun or a hamburger bun, but the sandwich definitely won't taste the same.

Okay, now that you have all your ingredients on hand, it's time to get started. The first step in making Popeyes chicken sandwich is all about the brine. If you're running short on time, you could skip this step, but your sandwich won't turn out anywhere close to the original. We've fried unbrined chicken breasts before, and they tend to turn out dry and chewy. 

You see, buttermilk is a slightly acidic version of regular milk, so it works like the vinegar or lemon juice you'll find in regular marinades. These acidic ingredients tenderize meat, breaking down the proteins to ensure that each bite is juicy and delicious. 

Buttermilk has become a go-to ingredient in Southern fried chicken recipes because it also has a tangy flavor that pairs well with a wide variety of spices. Not only that, but buttermilk will help the flour mixture cling to the chicken, creating a better crust.

Buttermilk is a perishable ingredient, and we always find ourselves with more than we needed after making a recipe that uses it. Luckily, powdered buttermilk works just as well in baking and fried chicken recipes, and it'll last up to a year after you open it.

While the chicken is brining, you can get to work making the breading. It's a pretty simple combination of all-purpose flour and spices — salt, ground white pepper, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder, to be precise. 

Then, we add in the two secret ingredients. The first is MSG (monosodium glutamate). This ingredient definitely gets a bad rap, but glutamate is a naturally-occurring substance that's found in food like tomatoes or aged cheese. Using it gives the chicken a boost of savory flavor, and your sandwich won't be the same without it.

The second secret ingredient isn't really that secret — it's baking powder. Some people use cornstarch in their fried chicken batter, but cornstarch creates a super-crisp crust that just isn't right for the Popeyes sandwich. Popeyes fried chicken has more of a tender, airy quality, so we added baking powder, which creates gas bubbles to keep the breading nice and light.

The next step in our sandwich-making process is to bread up the chicken. You've already prepared the flour coating, but you'll also want to create a mixture of buttermilk and egg that will help the breading adhere to the chicken breasts. Feel free to add an egg to 1/2 cup of the seasoned buttermilk that was used for the brine, or you can mix the egg with a fresh batch of buttermilk.

From there, remove the chicken from the brine and let any excess liquid drop back into the bowl. Place the chicken into the flour mixture and turn it until all sides are lightly coated in flour. Then, dunk the chicken into the egg mixture (sorry, your hands might get a little messy during this step!) before placing it back into the flour mixture. On this second round in the flour, press the chicken firmly into the flour until a crust builds. If you don't see any craggly edges on the chicken, toss it around in the flour a little bit until the breading becomes nice and bumpy.

We don't like to let the chicken sit for too long once it's breaded. Serious Eats author Kenji López-Alt says that you run the risk of creating a tough, brittle crust when you rest dredged chicken. The flour absorbs too much moisture, so we'd just as soon fry the chicken as soon as it comes out of the flour.

While the chicken is frying, you'll want to toast up the brioche buns. Adding a lightly crunchy edge to these soft buns creates a beautiful textural contrast, part of what makes Popeyes chicken sandwich so irresistible! Because of their odd shape, you can't exactly pop them in a toaster, but you can certainly toast them on a hot skillet.

You'll want to make sure to have softened butter for this step because cold butter can tear into the delicate crumb on the brioche. If you happened to forget to pull out the butter, you can grate it on a microplane to make it easier to work with. Spread the butter on the top and bottom bun and place them butter-side down on a hot griddle or skillet (we like using our cast-iron skillet). After about two minutes, the bread should be lightly crispy and golden brown.

From here, it's finally time for the sandwich build. Add the mayonnaise to the top and bottom bun, lay down a layer of pickles, and top it with the fried chicken. If you're feeling civilized, you can cut the sandwich in half, but let's be real; you're probably going to eat the whole thing in one sitting anyway.