Chicken and waffles is absolutely delicious when you make everything from scratch at home. To save time, you can prep the waffles in advance and freeze them or swap the homemade buttermilk fried chicken with your favorite frozen fried chicken tenders instead.
PREP TIME 15 minutesminutes
COOK TIME 30 minutesminutes
YIELD 4servings
Ingredients
To Assemble the Final Dish:
8malted waffleshomemade from the recipe below or you could use your favorite frozen Belgian waffles
To serve the chicken and waffles family style, preheat the oven to 200°F. Set a large baking sheet inside the oven to warm through. You'll collect the griddled waffles in the oven as you finish them to keep warm until you've finished the entire batch of batter.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients first. Add the flour, cornstarch, malted milk powder, sugar, baking powder, and salt and stir them together until well combined.
In a separate large measuring cup, measure the milk and add the eggs and vanilla. Whisk them together till smooth.
Pour the milk mixture and the vegetable oil into the dry ingredients. Stir everything together until no more dry pockets of flour remain. Your batter may have some small lumps, that's ok. Don't over mix the batter.
Let the waffle batter sit while you preheat the waffle maker according to the appliance directions.
Spray the waffle iron with cooking spray and fill the griddle wells according to the directions for your appliance. For my waffle maker, I use 1/3 cup batter in each well and cook the waffles for 4 minutes.
Transfer the cooked waffles to the oven to keep warm while you finish the rest of the batch.
If you plan to make the fried chicken from scratch, I recommend prepping the waffles in advance so you can simply reheat them before serving. You can keep them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze them up to 6 months. Warm them on a baking sheet in the oven until crispy and warmed through.
Prepare the Chicken:
Homemade buttermilk fried chicken involves quite a bit of extra work and should be done fresh right before serving the chicken and waffles together. This isn't a great choice for relaxing over brunch with your family, so I recommend baking your favorite brand of frozen fried chicken tenders to keep things easy. For special occasions that are worth the extra effort, you may want to make this buttermilk fried chicken recipe from scratch. If you marinate the chicken the day before, you'll save time with the final cooking.
Assemble the Chicken and Waffles:
To make the sauce for the chicken and waffles, stir together the maple syrup and hot sauce. Serve it at the table in a small sauce pitcher for pouring.
To serve chicken and waffles, place two waffles on each plate. Top each waffle with a baked chicken tender. Drizzle with the prepared sauce and enjoy warm.