Note: there are ZERO loose chick jokes in the content of this sandwich blog post. You’re welcome.
Two weeks ago, this blog was in St. Louis trying the St. Paul sandwich. Last week we all took a visit to Seattle to recreate their Caribbean roast pork. This week I’m writing about Nashville hot, but it’s not on a sandwich that anyone in Tennessee or anywhere else is making. This is a sandwich creation of my own invention, and everything didn’t turn out exactly as I’d hoped, but I wanted to write about it anyway. I’m sure you know how this sort of thing goes.
“The Facts of Life” for The Facts of Life (1979-1988)
You take the good
You take the bad
You take them both and there you have
The facts of life
The facts of life
Written by Alan Thicke, Gloria Loring, and Al Burton
Sometimes things don’t work out according to your vision, but since the sandwich was still a good one, I wanted to share. This sandwich is on the hot end of spicy—nothing mild here—and it’s tasty and super easy to make. It just didn’t turn out to look like the mental picture I had created in my head. It’s kinda boring-looking and paler than I had hoped. I do discuss what I could have done differently, down in the section about how I made the chicken part of this sandwich. Maybe I’ll do some more testing in the future if I come up with a way to make the components of this sandwich a bit more interesting to look at.
What is this sandwich?
As I said, this sandwich is not mild. Let’s get that out of the way. It might not look like it, but it is a spicy one. The concept is a combination of a Nashville hot paste plus a loose-meat sandwich using chicken. This is an original creation of mine that takes ground chicken that’s cooked down in chicken broth and thickened slightly, and then I mix in some spicy fat in the form of hot oil, cayenne pepper powder, garlic powder, MSG, and brown sugar.
What is Nashville hot?
If you’ve never had it or have been living under a rock for the past 10 years, Nashville hot is a style of fried chicken that was invented in Nashville, Tennessee, of all places. It’s basically a combination of hot oil, cayenne pepper powder, garlic powder, and brown sugar to create a paste or glaze to cover fried chicken. Because of the hot oil, the paste does not turn the chicken soggy, and the sugar mixed in with the crunchy texture and savory spice blend makes you crave the next bite.
What is a loose meat sandwich?
A loose meat sandwich is a style of sandwich that usually refers to a Maid Rite sandwich, invented in Iowa. Typically, it’s ground beef that’s crumbled and cooked with seasonings and scooped “loose” onto a sandwich or burger bun. But there are lots of other sandwiches that fit into this category, like sloppy joes and Mt. Airy’s ground steak.
Most people connect loose meat sandwiches with ground beef, but they could be made with any ground meat.
This sandwich is a bit messy. It’s a bit spicy. And it’s also a bit addictive and delicious.
Also, there were ups and downs in this sandwich adventure for me. I started with a different concept entirely, honed it into what you see now, but I envisioned it looking drastically different. First, I thought I would turn this whole thing into a Nashville hot, ground chicken grilled cheese (or melt if you’re being specific). And then I thought maybe I’d combine the concept of Iowa’s loose meat sandwich with the flavor combination of Nashville hot sauce and serve it with pickles on top, like Nashville hot fried chicken is presented.
What I ended up with was a tasty, ground chicken sandwich that tastes like it’s combined with a Nashville hot sauce, but the whole thing turned out way paler in color than I expected. I was already aware that ground chicken is hard to cook and brown properly without overcooking, but I thought the Nashville paste that was full of cayenne pepper powder would persist and color the meat a bit more. I wanted and expected a much darker burgundy red color, but all the cayenne pepper powder just blended into the meat and disappeared until you take a bite.
How should Nashville hot things look?
I’ve written about Nashville hot sauce/paste in three different sandwich blog posts before, and below you can see what colors I was expecting. A bit further down the page, when I describe how I made the Nashville hot loose chicken, I do address ways that I could have made the meat more fiery-colored, but these are just concepts and theories. Again, the sandwich itself hit the marks on flavor; it just doesn’t appear to be Nashville hot from first glance.
I turned a fried pork tenderloin sandwich into a Nashville hot version.
I made bird dog sandwiches and hit one with Nashville hot spice.
I fried up two versions of halibut sandwiches. One got the spicy treatment.
As you’ll see below, I did not get those colors, but I did get the flavor… Now that we know what sandwich we’re targeting, let’s make that bread.
Soft potato buns
A loose meat sandwich like you might find in Iowa or at the chain restaurant called Maid Rite would come on a very soft and likely inexpensive white bread hamburger bun. I have a lot of experience making buns like this, but I recently checked, and it’s been more than 3 months since I did so last. I decided it was time to make some buns.
This is my favorite soft burger bun recipe, and it is not made from fresh potatoes; instead, it contains potato flour, which is an ingredient that helps to keep the buns softer for a longer period of time. The starch in the potato flour absorbs and holds liquid, which keeps the inside of the buns moister and prevents them from drying out as quickly as buns without potato flour.
If you do a lot of baking, you’ll likely come across bun or bread recipes that contain mashed potatoes, and that will do something very similar since potato flour is simply made from cooked, dried, and powdered potato. The potato is not there for taste; it’s there to help the buns be softer and less dried out than regular buns.
I hope you enjoy the soft pretzel I made from the leftover dough while shaping these buns. Typically, I will weigh out the whole amount of dough and divide by 6, but instead I just weighed out 90 grams of dough per bun and had just a little leftover that ended up being a baker’s snack.
The buns are painted with melted butter right when they’re removed from the oven and then left to cool for a couple of hours before slicing. I think a loose meat sandwich works best on a toasted bun, so I did that as well when preparing this sandwich.
Here’s my super soft potato bun recipe. If you don’t want to bake, just buy a nice, soft bun and make sure you toast it so that the bread will stand up to the loose chicken.
Super soft potato buns v2
Here's my updated, soft and squishy bun recipe that's perfect for your next burger night. This updated version that uses potato flour and dry milk powder for a lighter bun with longer shelf life.
Get RecipeNashville hot loose chicken
Basically, this part of the recipe requires what all loose meat sandwiches need: some sort of ground meat—in this case, chicken. But before I get to that point, I whip up a bit of a Nashville hot paste so that it can settle and meld together while the chicken cooks. I don’t know if this actually does anything for the flavor at all, but it gets something out of the way so that you don’t have to worry about it while the chicken is sautéing.
My Nashville hot paste consists of vegetable oil, cayenne pepper powder, brown sugar, garlic powder, and I add a touch of MSG just for extra savoriness. The chicken should be seasoned with salt and pepper while it cooks, so I do not add any extra at this point, but you should taste when everything is finished cooking and see if it needs more salt.
Mix the seasonings together and then add oil and mix thoroughly until it’s a very thin paste. This can be set aside until the chicken is almost finished cooking.
When sautéing ground beef, you don’t really need to add fat to the pan, but with chicken, I do start with a bit of vegetable oil in the pan to keep things lubed up. While the chicken is cooking, you should spend some time with a spatula or a mashed potato masher to break the chicken up into smaller pieces.
Once the chicken is mostly cooked, I add a bit of all-purpose flour and chicken broth. The point of these two additions is to help to moisten the chicken and also allow things to thicken up just a little bit. This cooks until the liquid is mostly evaporated, and then you can add the Nashville hot paste to finish the loose chicken.
So, the big question is: what could I have done to make the sauce color the meat into a darker burgundy “Nashville hot” color? I’ve thought about this a little bit, and I could have used some other red things like ketchup or sriracha, but those would have changed the flavor away from the expected Nashville hot flavor.
There are things like annatto, which comes from the seeds of an achiote tree. Annatto is known to change things like cheese into a darker orange color. Annatto is known in the United States to be a color additive that is considered to be a “natural coloring agent.” This would have worked and probably would have helped to change the color of this loose chicken to be a darker orange-ish red. But I didn’t have any in my house to try.
I also could have added more cayenne or possibly some paprika powder, which would have added more reddish coloring without contributing too much extra heat. There’s already enough of that involved here.
Basically, I ended up just living with what I had. It tasted good; it tasted like Nashville hot sauces I’ve had before, and overall it worked just fine. It just wasn’t exactly what I expected. The pickles, though, were exactly what I expected because I make them and have them in my fridge all the time.
Spicy MSG pickles
Nashville hot fried chicken is always served with pickles. Those are the rules. I decided not to rock the boat, and I served my sandwiches with pickles as well.
I don’t think the pickles do a lot to quell the heat in the Nashville hot paste because I think the vinegar sort of helps to move the heat around your mouth, but the acid does work well whenever there’s some extra oil or fat involved in the recipe.
My pickle recipe includes MSG, which I think makes these pickles quite addictive, and I suggest that you at least try the recipe once with that ingredient included. Many people still think MSG is bad for you, but MSG is perfectly safe, and these pickles will end up being your favorites.
Here’s a recipe for my MSG pickles that are a big hit with everyone I’ve served them to. They’re easy to make, but you can also just buy your own favorite pickles at the store for a sandwich like this. If you look closely at the photos of the sandwiches I shared below, you’ll see that I do use store-bought pickles in at least one test version of this sandwich.
Spicy MSG pickles
Spicy and dilly and savory pickles are great as a snack or in a sandwich. A great addition to any refrigerator. I based this recipe off of a MSG pickle tweet from Joshua Weissman (that no longer exists online), and I added extra spice.
Get RecipeCheese or nah?
I made this sandwich with and without cheese. The cheese definitely helps to cut some of the spice. If you leave out the cheese, you will get a sandwich that’s flavored much more like a medium-hot Nashville hot chicken flavor experience.
I used Muenster cheese, but provolone, white American, or even something like Swiss would work just fine.
I heated up the loose chicken, piled it on the toasted bottom bun, and then layered on a slice of cheese that I had broken in half. Then I broiled the bottom half of the bun with the chicken and cheese piled on until the cheese got just a touch melty.
This also had the added benefit of making sure the bottom bun and meat were still warmed through as well. The moral of the story is to only add the cheese if you want a slightly less spicy sandwich. If you want to feel all of the heat, leave off the cheese.
Nashville hot loose chicken sandwich photos and recipe
Here are several photos of the Nashville hot loose chicken sandwiches that I made this week. Most have cheese. Most have homemade pickles, but some have no cheese and store-bought pickles. You’ll have to scroll through to figure out which.
And then you’ll get the recipe just below for free. Use it and make your own spicy loose chicken sandwiches and tell me how they turned out.
Nashville hot loose chicken sandwich
This sandwich combines the addictive spiciness of Nashville hot chicken and the concept of an Iowa loose meat sandwich in chicken form. Each bite is savory and spicy, with a cooling effect coming from the toasted bun, tangy pickles, and cheese.
Ingredients:
Nashville hot paste- 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper powder
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1⁄4 teaspoon MSG (optional)
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
- 1 pound ground chicken (or turkey or beef)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 3⁄4 cup chicken broth or water
- 1 soft white potato bun
- around a quarter of the Nashville hot loose chicken (from above)
- 1 Muenster, provolone, mozzarella, or white American cheese slice
- pickle slices
Directions:
Nashville hot paste: make the Nashville hot paste by combining cayenne pepper powder, brown sugar, garlic powder, MSG, and oil in a small bowl. Set aside until later.
Loose chicken: add oil to a medium pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add chicken, season with salt and black pepper, and cook for about 5 or 6 minutes, using a spatula, potato masher, or other utensil to break up the ground chicken into smaller pieces.
After 5 or 6 minutes, when the meat is almost cooked, add flour and stir it into the chicken. Cook for about 1 minute and then add chicken broth and cook for 5 minutes while the liquid reduces.
When the liquid is reduced a bit, stir in the Nashville hot paste and cook for 2 to 3 minutes until everything is warmed through. Store in a sealed container in the fridge if not making a sandwich immediately.
Sandwich assembly: when it is time to make a sandwich, warm about a quarter of the chicken in the microwave or in a small pan over medium-low heat. While the meat is warming, toast a hamburger bun.
Add the warmed chicken to the bottom bun and top with a slice of cheese. You can broil the exposed chicken and cheese if you would like to melt the cheese, but it should melt a little with the warm chicken and bun.
Top the cheese with slices of pickles and serve.
Check back next week
Next week we’re going to be making some more buns, and I’ll be making a burger for all of your friends named Jeff. Email everyone you know who was born with the name Jeffery and tell them to subscribe to get ready.
