KFC Original Recipe facts for kids

KFC Original Recipe chicken

The KFC Original Recipe is a secret mix of special ingredients that the fast food restaurant chain KFC uses to make its famous fried chicken. It's known for its unique taste, which comes from a blend of 11 different herbs and spices.

How the Secret Recipe Began

By the late 1930s, Harland Sanders ran a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky. His fried chicken was so popular that he decided to turn the gas station into a restaurant and motel.

Sanders worked hard to make his chicken perfect. He found that cooking chicken in a pan took too long, about 30 minutes for each order. Deep frying was faster, but the chicken often turned out dry. In 1939, he discovered a new way using a pressure fryer. This machine cooked the chicken quickly, in just eight or nine minutes, making it tasty and juicy. By July 1940, Colonel Sanders had finished his special Original Recipe.

When Sanders teamed up with Pete Harmon in the 1950s, they started selling the chicken as Kentucky Fried Chicken. To keep the recipe a secret, the company sent the spices already mixed to all the restaurants. This way, no one person knew the full recipe. Colonel Sanders often said that the ingredients were things "everybody's shelf" could have.

For frying his chicken, Sanders used vegetable oil. Over time, many KFC restaurants started using a mix of palm and soybean oil to save money. However, in Japan, KFC still uses more expensive cottonseed and corn oil because they believe it makes the chicken taste better.

The Secret Ingredients

The original recipe, signed by Colonel Sanders himself, is kept in a super-safe vault at KFC's main office in Louisville. Inside the vault, there are also 11 small bottles, each holding one of the herbs and spices. To keep the recipe a secret, it's made in two parts. One company, Griffith Laboratories, makes half of the mix. Then, it's sent to McCormick, who add the other half. This way, no single company knows the entire recipe.

Over the years, many people have tried to guess the secret recipe. In 1983, a writer named William Poundstone did some tests on the chicken coating. He thought it only contained flour, salt, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and black pepper. But KFC says they still use Colonel Sanders' exact 1940 recipe.

A former secretary of the Colonel, Shirley Topmiller, once shared that Sanders learned from his mother that sage and savory are good spices for chicken. Also, a friend of the Colonel, Winston Shelton, said that the recipe includes Tellicherry black pepper.

Colonel Sanders also asked a company called Marion-Kay Spices to make his secret blend. He actually preferred their seasoning over the one the company made after he sold KFC. After Sanders passed away, KFC stopped Marion-Kay from selling their mix to KFC restaurants. However, Marion-Kay still sells a similar seasoning called "99-X." Some people, like writer Josh Ozersky, say it tastes just like the original KFC recipe.

A Possible Recipe Discovery

In August 2016, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported an exciting find. Joe Ledington, who was Colonel Sanders' nephew by marriage, said he found a handwritten copy of the original KFC recipe. It was in an envelope inside a scrapbook!

The newspaper staff tried cooking with this recipe. It took a few tries to get it right. They had to figure out if "Ts" meant tablespoons or teaspoons. After some experiments, they decided the chicken should be soaked in buttermilk and then coated once in the spice mix. Then, it was fried in oil at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 175 degrees Celsius) in a pressure fryer until it was golden brown. Since a pressure fryer is very big, they used a deep fryer instead. They also found that adding MSG (a flavor enhancer) made the chicken taste "indistinguishable" from what they bought at KFC.

The recipe Joe Ledington found listed these ingredients:

• 11 Spices – Mix with 2 cups white flour
  • 2⁄3 tablespoon salt
  • 1⁄2 tablespoon thyme
  • 1⁄2 tablespoon basil
  • 1⁄3 tablespoon oregano
  • 1 tablespoon celery salt
  • 1 tablespoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon dry mustard
  • 4 tablespoon paprika
  • 2 tablespoon garlic salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 3 tablespoon white pepper

Joe Ledington wasn't completely sure if this was the exact Original Recipe. But he did remember helping Colonel Sanders mix the recipe when he was a young boy. He recalled that white pepper was a very important ingredient.

What We Know About the Ingredients

It's tricky to know the exact recipe because it's a big secret! However, because of food labeling rules, KFC has shared some general information about its ingredients. For example, if an ingredient is an allergen (like mustard), it must be clearly listed. KFC has never listed mustard as an allergen for its Original Recipe. Also, ingredients like garlic, celery, or onion are not listed by KFC. This suggests that recipes claiming to have these ingredients might not be completely accurate.

The ingredients that are almost certainly in the recipe, based on labeling, include: salt, MSG, black pepper, white pepper, coriander, and sage. Other ingredients are still a guess, but popular ideas include savory, thyme, ginger, and marjoram.

Many people think the seasoning mix has red ingredients like paprika or chili powder because of the color of the chicken. However, looking closely at the seasoning mixes (including the Marion-Kay 99-X), they don't seem to contain any red ingredients. The overall color of the spice mix is mostly grey, which comes from a lot of black pepper.

When talking about the Original Recipe, two other important things to remember are:

• The chicken is soaked, or "brined," in a liquid that has salt and MSG. It's not brined in buttermilk and eggs, as some people believe.
• The 2 cups of flour used for coating the chicken also include powdered egg whites, powdered milk, and a leavening agent like baking powder.