The Method That Makes Chick-Fil-A's Chicken So Good

Chick-fil-A's fried chicken is extraordinarily popular (just look at the wait in the drive-thru lines), but that's because it's consistently crisp, juicy, and flavorful. One of the secrets behind its success is in its cooking method because the chicken doesn't take just any bath in a deep fryer. When the chicken sandwich was first being developed, Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy tinkered with several recipes while thinking back to how his mother used to cook her fried chicken.

Cathy's mother preferred to use a pan with a heavy lid at home, effectively trying to recreate the environment that a pressure cooker operates under, and that's how he came upon the decision to purchase commercial pressure fryers to cook Chick-fil-A's now-famous chicken. Pressure frying is exactly what it sounds like: frying food in a high-pressure environment. The added pressure lowers the boiling point of water (which is inside of the chicken), meaning you can actually fry chicken at a lower temperature this way. Pressure frying also shaves some time off the cooking process, which is ideal for fast food. And since it has a shorter cook time, the chicken retains more moisture.

Chick-fil-A purchases its pressure fryers from a company called Henny Penny, and even if you're not familiar with that name there's a good chance you've already had something that's come out of a Henny Penny pressure fryer. It sells fine-tuned fryers to KFC (which also pressure-fries its bone-in chicken), McDonald's, Wendy's, and other fast food chains. Henny Penny was started in 1954 when restaurant owner Chester Wagner wanted a more efficient way to serve chicken. He took it upon himself to design a new fryer and launched Henny Penny to sell his innovation to other restaurants.

It's been a quiet part of the success of many restaurants and chains, and clearly the pressure technique works for Chick-fil-A's sandwiches, tenders, and nuggets (here's a hack to get the freshest batch straight from the fryer). You not only get a moist filet, but also a faster one, which makes your wait for lunch a little less patience-testing. It turns out S. Truett Cathy's mother was onto a billion dollar business idea just by making fried chicken at home.