Picnic chicken, prepared similar to our classic, southern fried chicken, is lightly dusted in a highly seasoned flour then oven fried in butter and set aside to cool completely, before packing for the picnic.
Picnic Oven Fried Chicken
When you see recipes for oven fried chicken it's most often a low fat attempt to recreate deep fried chicken, often using cornflakes as a coating. This is not that.
When you see the term "picnic" fried chicken, it's generally referring to a fried chicken that has been prepped for skillet frying, but is done mostly, if not completely, in the oven. Left to cool, it's delicious at room temperature or straight from the fridge, making it the perfect picnic chicken. This is that.
Of course, like classic fried chicken, there are as many ways to make this one as there are folks to cook it. I've actually got a couple different recipes myself! Great for camping, a picnic on the beach, a take along for fishing, or just to eat for supper, it's a southern classic.
Sick of cold weather where you are? Why not throw a red and white checkered tablecloth on the floor, prepare some picnic chicken, make up some pasta salad, potato salad or coleslaw, maybe some marinated green beans, add some French bread and iced tea and have a picnic? Put on some beach music, build a fire in the fireplace and make S'mores for dessert. Summer breeze y'all!
Here's how to make that picnic chicken.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Add 3 tablespoons of butter to a 9 x 13 inch glass baking pan and place into oven to melt, about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, to 1 cup of all purpose flour, add 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, 1 teaspoon of a seasoning salt (like Lawry's), 2 teaspoons of paprika, 1 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning (like Slap Ya Mama), or to taste, 1 teaspoon of dried thyme and 1 tablespoon of dried parsley.
Whisk together the flour and seasonings.
Rinse the chicken pieces and dredge them in the flour. I catch family packs of drumsticks on sale all the time so I usually have a few packages in the freezer, and they are my favorite piece of fried chicken, so that's what I used this time. These are rather large drumsticks too, so the time factors in about the same as a whole chicken, which is more typical. Other pieces work fine too, so just use your favorites or whatever you have on hand in your freezer. If you've got much smaller pieces of chicken, you'll need to make some adjustments in your cooking times.
Toss all of the chicken in the flour.
Set them all aside on a plate until you've floured them all.
Get the hot baking dish out of the oven and place the chicken into the buttered pan all together skin side up; turn to coat. Bake skin side down at 425 degrees F for 35 minutes.
Remove, turn skin side up and place back into the oven to bake another 20 to 25 minutes. Total time will be dependent on the size of the pieces.
Cook until chicken is completely cooked through and juices run clear when chicken is pierced.
Place a rack on top of some paper towels and transfer the chicken to the rack to cool completely before storing. Wrap chicken loosely in a clean sackcloth towel or paper towels then place into a large storage bag or container. Refrigerate if not using right away.
For more of my favorite fried chicken recipes, visit my page on Pinterest!
If you make this or any of my recipes, I'd love to see your results! Just snap a photo and hashtag it #DeepSouthDish on social media or tag me @deepsouthdish on Instagram!
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