Volcano Chicken Recipe
This Volcano Chicken Recipe combines super crispy chicken pieces tossed in a perfectly balanced sweet and savory sauce, with a little (or a lot!) of spice! You can easily customize the spice level on the sauce to make it super family-friendly! Serve this volcano chicken alongside this delicious Asian Style Broccoli for a complete, take-out quality meal right at home!
WHY YOU’LL LOVE THIS RECIPE
- Crisp, perfectly cooked chicken tossed in a sweet, savory and spicy sauce!
- Takeout quality right in your own kitchen!
- You can easily adjust the spice level to make it family-friendly
RECIPE INGREDIENTS
You’ll need the following ingredients to make this amazing Volcano Chicken Recipe:
INGREDIENT NOTES
Chicken: Boneless, skinless chicken breast works best.
Buffalo Sauce: Any buffalo sauce works. We like Sweet Baby Rays, but Franks or your favorite buffalo sauce is great!
HOW TO MAKE VOLCANO CHICKEN : STEP BY STEP
Here are some quick visual instructions. Remember that full instructions with exact ingredients will be in the recipe card below!
Step 1: Whisk together ingredients for the volcano sauce and set aside.
Step 2: Dip your chicken pieces in beaten egg, then dredge in cornstarch and flour mixture. Fry chicken in oil until golden brown.
Step 3: Add your volcano sauce to a large skillet and heat until bubbly and thickened. Add your chicken pieces to the sauce.
Step 4: Toss, toss, toss until chicken is well coated with the spicy sauce.
RECIPE TIPS & TRICKS
- Fry you chicken in batches, if you need to. Don’t overcrowd the pan or you won’t get the maximum crispiness on your chicken!
- The volcano sauce makes an AMAZING sauce for chicken wings!
STORAGE & REHEATING
- Storage: Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days.
- Reheating: This dish is best reheated in the oven to keep the chicken as crispy as possible! Place the chicken in an oven safe dish or baking sheet and bake at 400°F for 10-12 minutes until chicken is warmed through.
- Freezing: For best results, freeze the crispy cooked chicken and the sauce separately in freezer bags or in freezer proof containers like these. When you are ready to eat, thaw in the counter or overnight. Follow reheating instructions above and toss with warmed sauce.
ADDITIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS
Chicken: Chicken breast works best for this dish, but chicken thighs are also great! Turkey breast would work, too.
Spice: You can easily control the spice level of this dish. If you don’t want to use red pepper flakes, you can use sriracha, Thai chilis or even just black pepper to control the heat up or down. You can also get mild buffalo sauce if you don’t want much spice in the dish, but still want that great flavor!
Oil: The best oil for frying is either vegetable oil or peanut oil. Olive oil will also work if that is what you have on hand.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Typically, volcano chicken is a Thai dish that involves a whole chicken being cooked by being ignited in flames using an alcohol (whisky) of some sort.
Over time, the term “volcano chicken” has been adapted a lot, and has much less dangerous preparation methods! LOL! Today, it’s found in some Thai or even Chinese restaurants and is “crispy fried chicken with a spicy sauce.”
While my recipe for volcano chicken may not win any awards in the “authentic” department, I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy this crispy, spicy chicken dish (and you won’t have to light anything on fire)!
Serve this dish over hot white rice (jasmine rice is perfect!) or this easy breezy Trader Joe’s Fried Rice. Green vegetables are great on the side, too. These amazing Chinese Style Green Beans or steamed broccoli are my go-tos!
To make this dish spicier, you can increase the amount of red pepper flakes, add Thai red chilis or a few dashes of hot sauce or sriracha!
To make this dish less spicy and kid-friendly, use a mild buffalo sauce and omit the red pepper flakes!
Volcano sauce is typically a nice balance between sweet, savory and spicy. In this sauce, the savory comes buffalo sauce and soy sauce. The sweet is brown sugar and orange juice and the spice comes from both red pepper flakes and the buffalo sauce.
There are a few ways to lighten up this dish:
1. Skip the frying. Instead of breading and frying the chicken, just cook it with a little salt and pepper in about 1 tablespoon of oil. Then toss it with the sauce!
2. Serve over brown rice or quinoa instead of white rice.
3. Skip the rice! Skip the rice all together and serve this delicious volcano chicken in crisp lettuce leaves!
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I hope you love this Volcano Chicken Recipe! If you make it be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked it. Enjoy, xo!
Volcano Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
Volcano Sauce Ingredients
- 1/2 cup buffalo sauce I like Sweet Baby Ray's
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes adjust up or down, depending on your desired spice level. 1/2 tsp is medium-spicy.
For the chicken
- 1 lb. chicken breast or chicken tenders, cut into small 1 inch pieces
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1-2 cups oil, for frying vegetable oil and peanut oil work best
- green onions (spring onion) and sesame seeds for garnish optional
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together ingredients for the volcano sauce; set aside.
- Crack eggs into a medium sized bowl and beat about one minute until pale yellow and a bit frothy. Then, in a shallow dish or plate, combine corn starch, flour and salt and mix together.
- Add half of the chicken pieces into the eggs and coat well. Then, dredge the egg-coated chicken into the cornstarch/flour mixture. Try to get off any excess egg before dredging it, if you can. Transfer chicken pieces to a plate or a wire rack. Repeat with other half of the chicken.
- In a large skillet, add oil–use enough to coat the bottom of the pan by about 1/4 of an inch. You can also use a deep fryer if you have one!
- Heat oil over medium-high heat. You can test to see if the oil is hot enough but sprinkling a tiny bit of flour into the oil. If the flour sizzles, the oil is hot!
- Carefully add chicken pieces to the hot oil, making sure not to overcrowd the pan. You may need to do two batches depending on the size of your pan.
- Fry chicken for 4-5 minutes on the first side, until golden brown. Carefully flip the chicken and cook another 2-3 minutes on the other side. I like to use a fish spatula for this. A fork or chop sticks also work!
- When chicken is done, transfer to a paper towel lined plate.
- In another large skillet over medium heat, add the volcano sauce. Cook for 2-3 minutes until sauce is bubbly and begins to thicken and reduce a bit. Add chicken to the reduced sauce and stir to get chicken evenly coated.
- Sprinkle with green onions and sesame seeds, if you like and serve immediately over a bed of hot rice.
Love how easy this recipe is. It’s perfect for our family!
What a delicious combination of flavors! We will be making this again and again!
Great recipe, with an amazing choice of spices. I am going to be making it often, as asked by my children!
I am in loooooove with this sauce and love how quickly it all comes together! Really appreciate all the step by step pictures too.
Volcano is the perfect name for this recipe! I love the explosion of flavor and heat in it. It’s so good.
Drooling over this volcano chicken. Love the combination of flavors here.
Wow, this volcano chicken sounds incredible! My family will flip when I make this for them.
What a beautiful recipe, can’t wait to have these again.. Thank you!
The chicken looks amazing and very tempting. Need to try it out.
I’m always on the hunt for a new chicken recipe, my family are going to love this one, thank you!
This is a great family dinner. Anything with buffalo sauce and chicken always goes down well.
This is so good with plenty of steamed rice. Definitely a great choice for spicy food lovers because of the buffalo sauce.