Sampling Some Nashville Hot (Not) Chicken

When it comes to regional flavor specialties, popularity can be a double-edged sword. The historic Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y., put itself on the culinary map when it popularized spicy chicken wings in the 1960s. In 1956, Steve Henson began serving a new salad dressing he had invented for guests at his restaurant at Hidden Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a new flavor sensation was born. Before the “Chili’s-fication” of Tex-Mex in the ’80s, you’d have to travel to San Antonio or Houston to enjoy that particular hybrid of regional cuisines. Yes, there really was once a time before easily accessible fajitas.

However, with ubiquity and popularity comes dilution to the point that the dishes associated with these regional flavor creations become less important than the flavor itself. That leads to downright bastardizations in the potato chip aisle of your local supermarket, where “buffalo,” “ranch” and “fajita” have become taste descriptors instead of actual food items.

Nashville hot chicken has entered the chat.

From its birth in Thornton Prince’s home kitchen in the 1930s, our favorite fiery fowl grew at a slow burn, primarily locally in small, independent Black-owned chicken shacks like Prince’s, Bolton’s and Columbo’s. Over the past decade, hot chicken has become more than a regional obsession, hatching scores of piquant poultry-centric restaurants around the world. When KFC introduced their version of hot chicken in 2016, many local spice-heads declared the shark officially jumped.

The descent into madness has not subsided yet, though, as “Nashville hot” has morphed into a flavor profile that can be purchased in shakers or already added to a wide variety of foodstuffs that are decidedly not chicken. So we here at the Scene decided to convene a panel of writers and editors to taste our way through a variety of Nashville hot (not) chicken products and see if any of them are legit.

After a little bit of internet research and scanning the shelves at local groceries, I discovered plenty of candidates for our panel of pain. Apparently, both Kroger and Lay’s have abandoned their versions of Nashville hot potato chips, because I could only find them at Antiques Roadshow-level collectible prices in specialty online shops. I figured that if you couldn’t purchase them at reasonable prices, they weren’t going to be part of the test. We also insisted that every candidate had to have a specific local reference in their name. No “flamin’ hot” or “super spicy” bullshit in this test! “Nashville” hot or we taste it not. …

A half-dozen Scenesters gathered somewhat trepidatiously in the office conference room for the tasting, and we started by setting some standards. I asked which was everyone’s favorite local hot chicken joint, and to no surprise, spots like Prince’s and Bolton’s ruled the day. 

Then I asked what hot chicken should taste like. Responses included “spicy in a way that builds on itself and challenges your heat tolerance,” and “peppery, cayenne mostly.” Then we all set a base for our palates by enjoying a medium-plus heat level tender courtesy of Pepperfire Hot Chicken.

Our options ranged from savory to sweet, crispy to pillowy, beefy to err … chickeny.

The first two items made up the popcorn bracket of our competition. East Nashville popper Kernels claims that its Gourmet Nashville Hot Popcorn is the original example of spicy popcorn, but the tasting panel found it to be more sweet than spicy. One taster described it as “more like BBQ Lay’s than hot chicken,” but several commented on how cravable it was — including a warning that it would be “dangerous to keep around!”

Next on the docket was Marigold Gourmet Popcorn in the L&L Market complex on Charlotte. Marigold sources its Nashville Hot seasoning from its L&L neighbors at Savory Spice, and the tasters universally decided that while it was interesting and nuanced, it wasn’t Nashville hot. It was more like a curry flavor, with hints of cardamom or cinnamon. Overall, they still preferred it over the version from Kernels.

The next two samples were both unique takes on chips, actually made with chicken. Flock Chicken Chips are available at Hattie B’s and are manufactured by a company that creates low-carb keto-friendly snacks by wok-frying chicken skins. The Hattie B’s seasoning was definitely familiar, if a bit one-note, but the crunch of the chips is what set them apart.

“Kinda pork-rindy with a very nice crunch,” commented one happy taster. Another added, “I’d eat a bowl of these without thinking!”

The second chicken chip came from Wilde Chips, a Colorado-based company that uses breast meat from 100 percent all-natural chickens and tapioca flour to create completely grain-free snacks. Their Nashville Hot Chicken Chips made quite an impression on the panel.

“Better than they have any right to be!” commented one taster. “Super snackable,” added another. A new fan gushed: “Delicious. Eats like a chip but tastes like chicken. The crunch is great, it’s not greasy, it just tastes good!” Though that commenter did add that “it could be spicier.” Indeed, Flock scored almost twice as highly in the judges’ assessment of heat level, but Wilde’s cravability helped it win the chip crown.

Daily Crunch is a local vegan snack company that specializes in nuts that have been sprouted to improve digestibility and then dehydrated to add some crunch without the use of oil. Their Nashville Hot Sprouted Almonds were definitely a unique snack, and the judges were intrigued. “I’d never heard of sprouted almonds, but I’m not mad,” shared a taster. 

While the heat level was deemed among the lowest of everything we sampled, it did build a little bit as we grazed. Most of the judges mentioned something along the lines of “super snackable,” but one disappointed judge declared, “I think I’d rather have regular almonds.”

People’s Choice Nashville Hot Jerky was definitely the priciest item we tasted at $25 for a 1-pound bag that puts it at a per-ounce price comparable to filet mignon. The tasters were in universal agreement that it was delicious (“if you like jerky,” one offered as a caveat), but that it was not really that spicy at all. “It lacks the je ne sais quoi that is hot chicken-ness,” added one panelist using some delightfully fractured syntax.

Then it was time for dessert with two sweet offerings. First up was Nashville Hot Peanut Brittle from Brittle Brothers in Goodlettsville. The product name may be a bit of a misnomer, since no one judged the heat level to be more than a 2 on a 1-to-10 scale, but the judges still loved it. Taste and cravability scores were high across the board, and the brittle elicited comments like, “Great brittle! Not hot-chicken-influenced at all, but still good.”

The final offering garnered a similar response to the brittle. Party Fowl has teamed up with Status Dough to create a hot chicken doughnut sold at both the restaurant and the bakery. An objectively delicious and pillowy doughnut, it didn’t really flick any hot chicken levers in the judges’ capsaicin receptors. Instead, they described “sort of a general savory flavor, not sensing Nashville hot chicken at all,” and called it “really good but no heat.” One unimpressed judge declared, “It feels like branding more than anything.”

When the final scores were tallied, the big winner was the Wilde Nashville Hot Chicken Chips, taking top scores in both taste and cravability. Marigold’s curry-like popcorn was judged the spiciest, but its authenticity score compared to hot chicken dragged its total down. The most authentic was, unsurprisingly, Flock Chips, thanks to the fact that Hattie B’s flavor profiles are probably ingrained into the DNA of some of the tasters. 

At the end of the exercise, while the judges did discover some new taste treats that they said they would seek out in the future, the general consensus was that Nashville hot chicken flavoring really does best belong on chicken. Unless, we suppose, you dip those Wilde chips in Ranch dressing.