I was reading the side of my wife’s KFC box yesterday and they indicated that that the Colonel developed his ‘original’ recipe for chicken in 1939. 11 secret herbs and spices.
Too many people have worked at KFC to keep this a secret. I’m dying to know, because I’m insecure and hate when others know secrets I don’t…what the secret spices are? Any SD on the 11 SS?
In his first book of secrets, “Big Secrets”, William Poundstone describes how he analyzed the recipe for KFC by getting a worker to swipe a bag of seasoning mix, then taking the bag to a food chemist.
Result: No secret 11 herbs and spices. The bag contained salt, pepper, and MSG (and I think something else I can’t recall, but equally common, like flour). This is mixed with a milk and egg mixture. The chicken parts are battered with this then cooked using the Colonel’s (literally) patented process.
Poundstone researched the issue pretty thoroughly, digging out the Colonel’s patent and looking up articles on the subject. He suspects that the Colonel’s ORIGINAL recipe did, indeed, have 11 herbs and spices, but that later holders of the franchise cut back, probably to cut costs. He claims that when Colonel Sanders demonstrated to “Pete” Harmon out in Salt Lake he was able to whip up the seasoning using things available on any reasonable spice rack.
It makes you wonder what it used to taste like. KFC has tasted the same since I first tried it.
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
onion Powder
Basil
Oregano
Cumin
Cinnamon
Cloves
Dopey
and Blitzen
I was about to quote ‘Big Secrets’ but cal skunked me. So I’ll provide a follow up from:
http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/recipes/kfccrisp.htm
In 1971, with KFC now out of his control, Colonel Harland Sanders was approached by the company’s new owners, the Heublein Company, with a recipe for a crispier version of the famous fried chicken. The marketing department decided they wanted to call the product “Colonel Sander’s New Recipe” but the Colonel would have nothing to do with it. The stern and opinionated founder of the company who had publicly criticized the changes to his secret formulas (he called the revised mashed potatoes in a newspaper interview “wallpaper paste”), refused to allow the use of his name on the product. Since the Colonel was an important component of the company’s marketing plan, KFC appeased him. The new chicken was then appropriately dubbed “Extra Crispy,” and sales were finger-licking good. Now you can reproduce the taste and crunchy breaded texture of the real thing with a marinating process similar to that used by the huge fast-food chain, followed by a double-dipped coating. Unlike the Original Recipe chicken clone which is pressure-cooked in oil, this version is simply deep fried.
1 whole frying chicken, cut up
6-8 cups vegetable oil
Marinade
4 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon MSG (see Tidbits)
Coating
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon MSG
Tidbits
MSG is Monosodium Glutamate, the solid form of a natural amino acid found in many vegetables. It can be found in stores in the spice sections and as the brand name Accent flavor enhancer. MSG is an important component of many KFC items.
There was a woman on the Oprah show about 5 years ago that had written a similar book. She said that she had asked the Colonel directly what was in his recipe. He said that he couldn’t divuge the recipe, but he did direct her to look in the supermarket for something that had a lot of herbs & spices in it. After days of going through the store, she came up with…salad dressing. I couldn’t tell you what kind or who made it, but I think it was just regular ol’ italian or something like that.
ATTGuy: Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix.
You can read the source for that answer in this GQ thread.
Secret recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) - 7 replies
My momma always said I 'us a little slow…
One of our clients is a company that makes the coating mix for KFC.The way they operate, they seemingly believe the recipe is still secret.
I used to work at KFC. The seasoning mix was a bag of white powder that smelt like pepper. It sure as hell wasn’t salad dressing 
Actually it would have been extremely easy to take some powder for analysis. Nobody gets excited about it who actually works there…
Primaflora
My aunt is a saleswoman for Stange something or other in Mississauga, Ontario, an industrial supplier of consumable ingredients; they’re now a subdivision of McCormick Foods in Canada. They have the contract to supply some (all?) KFCs in Canada with the secret recipe.
Before they tightened up security after complaints from the head office, all the employees swiped some; my aunt got my mother a bag of it. It’s pretty good used in moderation.
Currently, it’s basically salt, MSG, and a variety of peppers. I didn’t know this was relatively new, but that’s what it is now.
The reason for the “secret recipe” is not to prevent competitors from duplicating the food-- To do that, you’d need to run FBI-style background checkson all employees, and besides, there’s other places that make better chicken anyway. The reason for the secret recipe is PR and marketing hype-- it sounds good when they say it in the commercials.
sawdust
dandruff
powdered cockroach
cigarette ash
navel lint
toe cheese
sweepings from a barber’s shop
anyone know the rest?
I hear the Colonel actually used chickens at one time…