Fried Butter Chicken with Garlic Waffles

Fried chicken and waffles is one of the best food combinations ever, so imagine how good it tastes with a spicy butter chicken sauce and garlic naan inspired waffles! This plate of food is one of the best things I have tasted in a long long time and I was amazed with how well the flavors came together. Indian spices can really amp up the flavors in any meal, and when the chicken is marinated in them it brings so much to the table. This dish will blow your friends minds if you make it for brunch.

The inspiration for this recipe

A very common spice used in indian cooking is fenugreek. The first time I bought the whole seed at a store, I was surprised to realize the bag smelled like maple syrup. After doing some research, I found out that fenugreek is actually used by a lot of “fake” maple syrup companies to create the maple flavor for their sugar water syrup.

After I realized that, I knew I had to do some sort of Indian food mashup with pancakes or waffles. I finally settled on doing butter chicken and it led me to the idea of fried chicken and waffles!

Marinate the chicken

This is a typical tikka style marinade for the chicken. Yogurt, lime, garlic, ginger, and lots of spices. Put it into the fridge for at least 3 hours if not overnight.

Make the butter chicken sauce

Start with some butter, onions, and jalapenos in the pan along with cinnamon, clove, and cumin. A more authentic recipe would be using whole spices at the beginning of the process but I wanted to keep it easy and use what I had in my pantry at the time.

After the photo above, I added garlic, ginger, and a bunch more spices. Then canned tomato and maple syrup. I used syrup instead of fenugreek and really added a lot of the syrup. This is one of the ingredients that really ties the fried chicken and waffles to the butter chicken and helps the mashup feel seamless.

Finally add some heavy cream and blend the sauce smooth.

Garlic Waffles

For the waffles, I almost just put naan dough in a waffle maker, but I wanted this to be a combination of chicken and waffles and butter chicken, not just butter chicken that LOOKED like chicken and waffles. I made waffles inspired by the flavors of garlic naan rather than actual waffled naan. In the bowl is flour, baking powder, yogurt, egg, milk, butter, sugar, garlic, cilantro, and salt.

Then just add it to a greased and preheated waffle maker. I think I need a new waffle maker I have had this one for a long long time.

Fry the chicken

Dredge the chicken in a well seasoned flour mixture. Mine has some flour, salt, and cornstarch, along with garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, and cumin. Dip the chicken in there while it is still covered in the marinade so the flour sticks to it well.

Then fry it for about 8 minutes until nicely browned and cooked through.

Keeping the Fried Butter Chicken with Garlic Waffles warm

Because you have to make the garlic waffles and fried chicken in batches, I put my oven on as low as possible and added everything to the pan as it finished. I also had the butter chicken sauce simmering on low on the stovetop.

Serving the Fried Butter Chicken with Garlic Waffles

Start with the waffles, then add the chicken.

Then pour on that incredible sweet, spicy, and creamy butter chicken sauce! Garnish with butter, cilantro, and chili flakes. So good.

This was easily one of my favorite meals in a long time. Everything worked so well, it all seemed like it was meant to be together!

Twists on Fried Butter Chicken with Garlic Waffles

You could do this with naan dough right in the waffle maker as I mentioned above. I think that would also come out great. You could also make butter chicken the normal way, with stewed pieces of chicken in the sauce, and pour it over the garlic waffles.

You could easily make this vegan too, using vegan cream and butter in the sauce and waffles, and vegan chicken strips.

For a more traditional butter chicken, I love this recipe and I often use Swasthi’s recipes for research when I am working on a recipe like this.

For more recipes like this one, I made a soup inspired by butter chicken before, and I love this chicken parm chicken tikka mashup. Or how about a gochujang honey mustard fried chicken sandwich?