Fried chicken glossed with a golden-orange mango hot honey, with a bottle of Mango Ghost Pepper hot sauce behind

Mango Ghost Pepper Hot Honey Fried Chicken

Mango is doing the work here. Most hot honey is chilli flakes steeped in honey, which gives you burn and very little else. A third of a cup of mango sauce whisked into warm honey and butter gives you fruit in the honey itself, round and tropical, and the jar ends up tasting like something rather than just stinging.

Mango Ghost Pepper is the bottle, and it is the hotter choice on purpose. The mango carries the first second, then the ghost pepper arrives at the back of the throat and keeps climbing while you eat. On fried chicken that is exactly right, because the crust and the buttermilk blunt it.

Pour it over while the crust is still crackling so it runs into every shaggy edge. Serve on a split buttermilk biscuit and let the honey soak down into that too.

Time 45 min · Serves 4 · Sauce Mango Ghost Pepper · How it is used 1/3 cup whisked into honey and butter to make the hot honey

Ingredients

For The Hot Honey

For The Chicken

  • 6 boneless chicken thighs
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • Neutral oil for frying
  • Split buttermilk biscuits and fresh thyme, to serve

Method

  1. Soak the thighs in the buttermilk for at least 30 minutes, or overnight in the fridge.
  2. Warm the honey, hot sauce and butter together in a small pan over low heat, whisking, until it is smooth and just barely steaming. Do not let it boil or the honey turns bitter. Add the flaky salt and set it aside.
  3. Whisk the flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder in a wide bowl.
  4. Lift each thigh out of the buttermilk, let it drip for a second, then press it firmly into the flour. Press hard. Those shaggy bits are what catch the honey later.
  5. Heat 1 inch of oil to 350F. Fry the thighs in two batches, about 5 minutes a side, until deep golden and 165F inside.
  6. Rest on a rack for 2 minutes, never on paper towels, or the crust steams and softens.
  7. Set each thigh on a split biscuit, spoon the warm honey over generously, and scatter thyme on top.

One more thing

The jar keeps a month at room temperature. It is very good on cornbread, on roasted carrots and, unexpectedly, on vanilla ice cream.

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