KFC Chicken

There’s no denying that when people think of fried chicken, KFC is most probably at the top of their list. That’s because we take great care in preparing our chicken and make sure that we provide only the freshest and finest ingredients in all of the foods that we offer. Choose from our wide menu of chicken dishes, sides, sandwiches, desserts and more, and discover why everyday, 80 million people worldwide enjoy KFC.

11 Secret Herbs and Spices

For years, Colonel Harland Sanders carried the secret formula for his Kentucky Fried Chicken in his head and the spice mixture in his car. Today, the recipe is locked away in a safe in Louisville, Kentucky. Only a handful of people know that multi-million dollar recipe, and each is obligated to strict confidentiality by contract. The Colonel developed the formula back in the 1930s when he operated the Sanders Court & Cafe restaurant and motel in Corbin, Kentucky.

There, his blend of 11 herbs and spices first developed a loyal following of customers. "In those days, I hand-mixed the spices like mixing cement on a specially cleaned concrete floor on my back porch in Corbin," the Colonel recalled. "I used a scoop to make a tunnel in the flour and then carefully mixed in the herbs and spices." Today, the recipe is protected by some pretty elaborate security precautions. One company blends a formulation that represents part of the recipe while another spice company blends the remainder. As a final safeguard, a computer processing system is used to standardize the blending of the products to ensure neither company has the complete recipe. "It boggles the mind just to think of all the procedures and precautions the company takes to protect my recipe," the Colonel said, "especially when I think how Claudia and I used to operate. She was my packing girl, my warehouse supervisor, my delivery person-you name it.

Our garage was the warehouse." "After I hit the road selling franchises for my chicken, that left Claudia behind to fill the orders for the seasoned flour mix. She'd fill the day's orders in little paper sacks with cellophane linings and package them for shipment. Then she had to put them on a midnight train." Little did the Colonel and Claudia dream in those days that his Secret Recipe of 11 Herbs & Spices would be famous around the world. Source: KFC USA website

Pressure Fried
The great taste of KFC starts with farm-fresh chicken delivered to the restaurants. Then it is pressure-cooked in batches using the secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices created by Colonel Harland Sanders more than 50 years ago.Colonel Sanders was always experimenting with food at his restaurant in Corbin, Ky., in those early days of the 1930s. He kept adding this and that to the flour for frying chicken and came out with a pretty good-tasting product. But customers still had to wait 30 minutes for it while he fried it up in an iron skillet (considered about 25 minutes too long for the average person to wait).

Most other restaurants serving what they called "Southern" fried chicken fried it in deep fat. That was quicker, but the taste wasn't the same.Then the Colonel went to a demonstration of a "new-fangled gizmo" called a pressure cooker sometime in the late 1930s. During the demonstration, green beans turned out tasty and done just right in only a few minutes.

This set his mind to thinking. He wondered how it might work on chicken.He bought one of the pressure cookers and made a few adjustments. After a lot of experimenting with cooking time, pressure, shortening temperature and level, Eureka! He'd found a way to fry chicken quickly, under pressure, and come out with the best chicken he'd ever tasted.

Today, there are several different kinds of cookers used to make Original Recipe® Chicken. But every one of them fries under pressure, the principle established by this now-famous Kentuckian.The Colonel's first pressure cooker is still around, holding a place of honor at the museum dedicated to Colonel Sanders at KFC's Restaurant Support Center in Louisville, Kentucky.