Copycat Chick-Fil-A Grilled Chicken Sandwich Recipe

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How can something at Chick-fil-A be underrated? Known so well for its traditional fried chicken sandwich, the grilled chicken is sometimes an afterthought on the menu. You should certainly consider it, though. Grilled chicken is healthy, low in calories, and refreshing. The steps may seem daunting, but making a copycat of Chick-fil-A's grilled chicken sandwich is simple and delicious.

When you bite into a Chick-fil-A grilled chicken sandwich, there's something unmistakably juicy about it. There are a few copycat recipes online, but most add milk, buttermilk and pickle juice — three things not in the official ingredients. So what's the deal? What's that unique flavor going on with the Chick-fil-A grilled sandwich?

For this copycat recipe, you need chicken breast, a multi-grain bun, green leaf lettuce, a tomato, apple cider vinegar, water, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, orange juice, grape juice, chicken stock, molasses, and salt.

Chick-fil-A used iceberg lettuce until 2013, when they switched to a more nutritious green leaf. The grilled chicken gets "green leaf lettuce" — and yes, that's a thing. Take a look around at your local supermarket in the veggie section and you'll find it there.

Some restaurants like telling you what kind of tomato they use, some don't. Chick-fil-A is in the don't family. It's big and round, so a beefsteak or vine-ripe will do the trick. Just make sure the tomato is large enough to cover most of the bun — you should end up with tomato in just about every bite of the grilled sandwich.

If you can find a multi-grain bun, like Chick-fil-A uses, you're better than me. I looked high and low and nigh a multi-grain bun appeared. You can substitute in a wheat roll here — it won't be the same, but beggars can't be choosers.

The key ingredient to the grilled chicken is... chicken. Okay, well, you probably knew that. But unlike Chipotle, Chick-fil-A uses chicken breast. The average cooked Chick-fil-A grilled chicken weighs 4 ounces, yet your average chicken breast doesn't look quite the same as what you find at the grocery store. We need to do two things to get the chicken ready: butterfly and flatten it. A knife and a meat mallet will get it done. To butterfly chicken, lay it flat and run your knife through the middle; splitting the top and bottom into petty equal parts.

No meat mallet? No problem. I don't have one either. There are plenty of ways to flatten a piece of chicken. The easiest way is the ole "double cutting board" trick. Place your piece of chicken between two cutting boards (lined with foil, if you prefer), and press. If you don't think you have the strength to press the chicken down flat enough, you can gently use a regular rubber mallet on the cutting board for some added pressure.

We need a pretty hot grill pan (even if we aren't using a grill) to get the product we want — about 425 degrees, or medium-high on a stove top. It's hot, but we'll be cooking quickly so it's fine.  

Drop a little oil onto the grill pan. I'm using flavorless safflower oil, because I don't need any additional tastes in there besides the marinade, and safflower oil is great in high heat. Place the flattened chicken onto the heated oil and let it cook for three minutes.

We're going to be flavoring the chicken by brining it. The base for our basic pickle brine is: ½ cup each of apple cider vinegar and water, and to that add ½ tablespoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. Then comes the things that make this undecidedly not a pickle brine: ¼ cup of orange juice, and 1 tablespoon of grape juice, along with ¼ cup of chicken stock. Finish that off with 1 tablespoon of molasses and salt each and we just created something kinda crazy which just might work. The chicken goes in the brine for a minimum of four hours.  

You don't have to fire up the grill to make this, providing you have a grill pan. If you don't have one and grilling is not an option, just live with the fact that you won't have those cool sear marks on the final product. It'll still taste great, I promise.

If you do have a grill pan but you're struggling to get the chicken to develop those iconic sear marks, don't worry. Just take a small saucepan and put it on top of the chicken. You don't have to press down hard, but the weight will assure you get some pro-style marks. About 10-20 seconds of force will do the trick here.

After three minutes, give the chicken a flip. Wow, look at those sear marks! It worked! We're shooting for another three minute cook here.  

The chicken flip is the perfect time to start toasting the buns. We're going to put this in a pan set on low for three minutes. That'll get us the crisp we want for the bun.  

If we time this correctly, the buns should be done as the chicken finishes up. The build is fairly straightforward. To the toasted bun, add a piece of lettuce on the bottom with two thinly sliced tomatoes on top — enough to cover the entire bun. Put the grilled chicken on top of that and throw on the top bun. Simple, yet tasty.  

You're not eating any Chick-fil-A without sauce. You're just not. The Chick-fil-A family of sauces is amazing, and we need one of these to complement the grilled chicken. Chick-fil-A introduced Sweet & Spicy Sriracha Sauce in 2015 (it was known as Sweet Sriracha at the time). It's the perfect mix of heat and sweet to make it irresistible, amazingly easy to replicate — and it's only 45 calories a serving! 

In a bowl, combine ¼ cup of water, 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar, and ½ tablespoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, ground ginger, and sugar as well as ½ tablespoon each of soy sauce and Tabasco sauce. The official recipe calls for red pepper, but the Tabasco will provide that heat. For the Sriracha, add 2 tablespoons of garlic chili powder.  

Sauces typically come together a little better with heat, so put all that in a small saucepan and heat at low for a few minutes, then add 1½ tablespoons of cornstarch. That'll get this to tighten up. Plop that in the fridge for 20 minutes to cool it down, and you have a sauce that tastes exactly like the one from Chick-fil-A.   

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At this point, it seems like common knowledge that grilled chicken is a healthier version of this popular poultry than fried chicken, but is it actually true? Turns out, it is. Reasonable minds may differ on the specifics, but as a general rule of thumb grilled chicken is in fact healthier. But the chicken is the same in both recipes, so what's the difference?

The difference lies in the other ingredients, primarily oil. With fried chicken, you're breading the chicken and dunking it in ripping hot oil which then suffuses into the breading. When you go to take a bite, most of what you're eating is just straight oil. When cooked into a recipe like fried chicken, it's delicious, but most of us would look at a glass of oil and think twice about chugging it.

Grilled chicken offers lean protein with very little oil included. It also doesn't have the breading all over it, which is often more delicious than nutritious. The flavors of grilled chicken don't pop as easily as they do with fried chicken, so it's important to season it properly or prepare it in a dish like this grilled chicken sandwich so you can eat well while still enjoying the food enough to do it again.

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