Chicken and Bacon Waffles

The Recipe

Courtesy of: Food Network Magazine - March 2014 Issue

For the waffles:
16 slices bacon
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
Kosher salt
3 large eggs plus 1 egg white
3 cups buttermilk, plus more if needed
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
Cooking spray

For the chicken:
3 cups peanut or vegetable oil, for frying
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1.5-inch wide strips
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
Maple syrup, for serving

Make the waffle batter; Dice 10 bacon slices; cook in a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and crisp, about 8 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Add the remaining 6 bacon slices to the skillet and cook, turning occasionally, until golden brown and crisp, 9 to 11 minutes. Remove the paper towels; reserve the drippings in the skillet.

Combing the flour, backing powder, sugar, and 1/2 tsp salt in a large bowl. Whisk the whole eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter in a separate bowl, then whisk into the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in the cooked dived bacon. Transfer 2 cups of the batter to a separate large bowl for the chicken; reserve the remaining batter for the waffles.

Make the chicken: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Add the peanut oil to the skillet with the reserved bacon drippings; heat over medium-high heat until a deep-fry thermometer registers 350 degrees. Add the thyme, paprika, and cayenne to the 2 cups waffle batter; add up to 2 tbsp buttermilk if the batter is too thick. Season the chicken with salt and black pepper, then toss with the flour. Add the chicken to the batter and set aside until ready to fry.

Set a rack on a baking sheet. Working in batches, remove the chicken from the batter, letting the excess drip off, then fry until golden brown, 2 minutes per side; transfer to the rack and reason with salt. Transfer to the oven and bake until no longer pink in the middle, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the waffles: spray a waffle iron with cooking spray and preheat. Whisk the egg white in a bowl until soft peaks form; fold into the reserved waffle batter. Ladle 1/2 to 1 cup batter into the waffle iron for each waffle and cook according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Serve with the fried chicken, bacon slices, and top with maple syrup.

Tips/Tweaks

Keeping it Healthy

This recipe has a pretty large (supposedly makes 6 servings) and unhealthy waffle batter. We used our favorite waffle recipe, which can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/waffle-of-insane-greatness-recipe.html
The "Waffles of Insane Greatness" batter does make less than the above recipe, so we only used 1 cup of the batter for the chicken and only about 1 lb of presliced chicken tenders.

Another thing we did to try and make this recipe a little healthier was to pan fry the chicken instead of deep frying it. We used olive oil and pan fried the chicken until it was crispy, then baked it according to the above recipe.

Review

This was Sarah's first experience of chicken and waffles, something she had wanted to try for a long time. Well, it was a success! We both loved the addition of the bacon, who wouldn't? We were a little skeptical about using the batter to coat the chicken, but it was a very nice way to maintain the sweeter side of waffles with the savoriness of the chicken. Perfect combination!