I’m very excited to release this recipe today! My previous Korean fried chicken recipes have been loved by my readers and their friends and families for years. Now I’m sure many people will love this recipe, too.
Last year I visited Korea and found so many of my fellow Koreans were crazy about honey butter flavored potato chips. I tasted them I liked them, even though I’m usually not a fan of butter. They were addicting! The company that makes honey butter chips is building a new factory to meet Koreans’ demand, and in the meantime there’s a shortage. It’s became a craze in Korea to give almost any kind of snack a honey butter flavor.
When I got back home to New York, I thought I could make something crunchy and sweet with a honey butter flavor, and I started experimenting with fried chicken. It took a lot of experiments until I was satisfied with the result.
It’s small pieces of crunchy sweet chicken with garlic, honey, butter flavor. So yummy! No wonder so many Koreans love this taste! It’s hard to stop eating them once you start! And this recipe is non-spicy, so everyone can enjoy it. Like my other Korean fried chicken recipes, we need to double fry the chicken to make it extra crispy, flavorful, and light.
Enjoy the recipe!
Ingredients
- 2 pounds of chicken wings (or chunks of chicken)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup potato starch
- ¼ cup all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ cup pumpkin seeds (optional)
- 4 cups cooking oil (corn or vegetable oil)
For honey butter sauce:
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- ¼ cup white or brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons honey
Directions
Prepare the chicken
- Put the chicken in a bowl and mix with salt and ground black pepper.
- Crack the eggs into the bowl and add starch, flour, and baking powder.
- Mix well by hand.
Double fry!
- Heat up a 12 inch skillet with the cooking oil over high heat for 5 to 7 minutes until it reaches 350° F. You can dip a tip of chicken into the hot oil to see if it is right temperature or not. If several bubbles come up, it’s time to fry.
- Put all the chicken pieces into the hot oil one by one. Let cook for about 5 minutes until the bottoms of the chicken turn a little crunchy. Then flip them over with tongs, splitting up any pieces that have fused together.
- Let cook another 5 minutes and then turn them all over.
- Keep frying and occasionally turning over for another 10 minutes until all sides are nice and crunchy.
- Transfer the crunchy chicken one by one into a strainer over a stainless steel bowl.
- Let the oil heat up for 1 minute and then put all the chicken back in. Cook for 7 to 8 minutes until all sides are crunchy and look golden brown.
- Strain the chicken and turn off the heat.
Make honey butter fried chicken
- Heat up a large skillet for a couple of minutes. Add butter and garlic and stir it up until the garlic turns fragrant and a little crispy. Add soy sauce, sugar and stir until well melted. Add honey and stir.
- Keep stirring until it bubbles vigorously.
- Add the chicken and the pumpkin seeds (if used). Mix and stir well to coat evenly.
- Serve right away or let cool to serve later.
Thank you for this top-of-the-chart recipe! I implemented peanuts instead of pumpkin seeds. The peanuts added more flavor and crunch.
Also, I added a garlic spice mixture substituted for the fresh garlic.
I used frozen chicken breasts from Schwan’s (The best) cut into semi-wide strips.
Please use a metal colander or strainer as the boiling, oiled chicken can melt the plastic-type as I learned.
See full size image
Regarde Maangchi comme c’est beau grâce à toi !!! Merci beaucoup. Cindy de Paris France
See full size image
Hi Cindy! It looks so crunchy! Congratulations!
I kinda late find out your page but your recipes are amazing and easy to make. I’ve tried some of your recipes and one of them is Honey butter chicken. Oh anyway I put sesame instead of sunflower seed and this is how it looks. My kiddos definitely love this finger licking fried chicken and i made it twice this week, kinda favorite menu for them.
I paired it with Gaji namul as side dish and they were perfect!
See full size image
I’m so happy to hear that your children loved your honey butter chicken! It looks wonderful!
Made this tonight! Decided to use chicken breast instead and it came out amazing! The sauce is delicious and the chicken was nice and crunchy
This is the best fried chicken recipe ever. Like chicken candy. The sauce is amazing. I have even used this sauce with sautéed scallops.
Ever since I bought both of your cookbooks weeks ago and been watching your YouTube videos ever since, I have been trying new recipes every week. 1st attempt on Honey Butter Fried Chicken and the outcome is awesome! My son loves it. Thanks Maangchi! I enjoyed reading your books and love all your recipes. Hope you will publish another new book soon…XOXO.
See full size image
Thanks Maangchi! This is the fourth chicken recipe that I’ve tried of yours. Super delicious~ Crunchy exterior, moist and tender inside, and the sauce is addicting!
See full size image
Thank so much for this recipe !!! And thanks for sharing such flavourful and delicious cuisine !!!
Even with my trip been postponed ( hopefully for next year ), I have been able to travel thanks to your recipe.
Working so well with my favourite vegetal ( broccoli )
Eager to try cooking other dishes !
See full size image
Having honey butter chicken with broccoli is such a great idea! : )
Hi Maangchi,
Please help learn how to print a recipe . Ive tried everything I can think of to print Spicy Garlic Fried Chicken. Thanks so much. Big fan of yours
We programmed this page so you can print this recipe on your printer and it will print nicely without the photos and extra stuff.
Tried this and my husband loved it!
See full size image
Awesome!
Maangchi, you are a life saver. I am hosting a young (13 years old) exchange student from Ulleungdo, South Korea, and she is not a fan of American cuisine. Thankfully I found your site and I made this dish tonight and it was a huge success! Not only did our guest like it, but so did my family, and we will definitely be adding it to the rotation of regular meals. I did as another commenter suggested and added just a touch of gochujang, because we like it spicy in our family. It was seriously the bomb.com. I served it with white sticky rice and sautéed mushrooms, cabbage, and carrots. The best part is that I made this gluten free (I can’t have gluten) and it tastes just like it’s full of delicious gluteny goodness. All I did was use gluten free soy sauce and Bobs Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour blend. The potato starch is naturally gluten free. I’m super excited about this because now I know that I can make breaded chicken for other Asian dishes! This discovery will be life changing. Thank you, Maangchi!
See full size image
Hi!
I love watching your videos and tried your fried chicken recipes. Today I had made the honey butter chicken and my family loved it (Sorry no time to take pictures, it was gone right after I took it out of the pan ) . I will be trying your other recipes soon.
just a question regarding the honey butter sauce, the sugar should be melted? (Am I right? ) comparing to your video it was different, the sugar did not melt, its like Im cooking an island I dont know what happened, I had followed the instruction but its not the same on the video and no bubbles after I added the honey hahaha, though the outcome is good.
I dont know if I had missed something??? Does it have to do with the butter? Thank you
Hi! How do I make it a little spicy and a little sweet?
Maangchi, thanks so much for this recipe. My kids loved it. Sorry, no photo as the dish was finished by the time I had washed the utensils! Slight problem was because I used chicken breast without the skin. So it didn’t turn out as crunchy but still was good. By the way, I added sesame seeds instead of pumpkin seeds. It made the chicken more fragrant. Looking forward to trying more recipes soon.
Awesome news!
I cant make the Sauce it always splits or the sugar is to brown what do i do?
Try turning your heat down a minute before you add your sugar. It sounds like you’re caramelizing your sugar too quickly. Use low heat.
Hi So I’ve made this couple of times and damn it is sooo good! But, would like to tweak it.
1. How can I make this a bit sweet and spicy?
2. Can I do the first frying in advance, ie earlier in the day and then do the double fry closer to eating time?
This second question is most important! Please!
You can add more honey and sugar to make it sweeter.
“Can I do the first frying in advance, ie earlier in the day and then do the double fry closer to eating time?” Yes, you can fry once and keep it in the refrigerator up to a couple of days and fry again before serving it. Good luck!
Can you save the leftover honey butter?
Just made it tonight and it was definitely better than some of the chicken I’ve had in Korea! Thank you so much! ^_^
See full size image
Wow I can almost smell your buttery chicken with crunchy texture!
Me and my group of best friends have been making this for well over a year now. At this point we just eyeball the recipe. It’s always a little different, but it never disappoints. After we finished eating it tonight I decided to finally hop on here and leave you a comment. Such a good recipe, and has been become a staple for our friend get togethers. Thank you so much for this! Excuse the extra sauce in the picture, we might have made a little extra in the batch tonight. ;)
Sending all our love and positivity – Joshua, Tiffany, Amanda, and Ian.
See full size image
Joshua, Tiffany, Amanda, and Ian,
I’m happy to hear that you enjoyed your homemade honey butter fried chicken! It looks so sweet and buttery! Yum!
Hi, from the reviews and the looks of the recipe. It looks so delicious. I’m looking forward to make it. However, I was wondering which kind of butter you used. Salted or unsalted? Thank you!
yeah, im wondering the same thing.
I always use unsalted butter.
OMG this is as crunchy as Bonchon chicken! Now, I am not going to waste ~$13 for 10 wings anymore. Can you give me a recommendation on how to make the sauce thin again (after leaving it in the fridge) when I need to heat it up for another batch of frying? It became thickened then hardened after leaving it in the fridge. Thank you!
Thank you, Maangchi for the recipe! Had these today with kimchi fried rice (not in picture) and cheese dip.
See full size image
OMG it looks so crunchy! I can see how crunchy it is through the photo! Congratulations!
hey maangchi, i just learned about you from your video with sean evans and i am loving what you do. I am trying this receipe because people I am cooking for don’t like spicy. I am loving it right now, easy and simple steps. Keep it up!
Welcome to my website and good luck with your Korean cooking!
My friends and I made this and we loved it! Only thing is the sauce hardened quite a bit after. Not sure if I didn’t cook the sauce enough or something. Overall would definitely make again
See full size image
It looks very candied, like honey butter candy chicken! Maybe next time add just a little bit of water to the sauce if you want to make the sauce thinner. Good luck!