This week, it’s time to make some waffles and chicken. Or as some people might say, chicken and waffles. We’re going to whip them up and turn it all into sandwiches.
The combination of chicken and waffles has a longer history than I initially thought. There are records of the Pennsylvania Dutch combining waffles, pulled chicken, and gravy as early as the 1600s, but the fried chicken version of chicken and waffles surfaced in Harlem, New York, in the 1930s at a restaurant called the Wells Supper Club. The future of fried chicken and waffles was secured when a guy named Herb Hudson, who grew up in Harlem, opened a restaurant called Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles in Los Angeles in 1975. I wrote about Roscoe’s and waffles briefly in 2022 during my attempt to combine LA food with Cincinnati food for the Super Bowl that year.
So, fried chicken and waffles taste great together, and I’ve already shown in my 2022 Super Bowl post that they work pretty well in a sandwich (albeit a weird one). Should we try it again? Yes. The answer is yes because there’s still more content on this page for you to read. Keep going.
In August of 2021, I also wrote about waffle sandwiches. But the waffles in this case were made from tater tots. Go read about tot waffles.
You gonna eat your tots?
What is this sandwich?
Bojangles, a southern-based fast food restaurant specializing in fried chicken and biscuits, has recently released a new sandwich offering that combines the essence of two of their more popular menu items. These items are their Cajun-seasoned fried chicken filet that’s the focus of one of their more popular biscuit sandwiches, as well as their Bo-Berry Biscuit, which is a sweetened blueberry biscuit with a sugary glaze on top. But they didn’t just make a Bo-Berry Biscuit sandwich with chicken inside (because they already did that—and I wrote about it; it’s called the Uva).
The bold new offering pairs Bojangles’ signature Cajun Filet on a warm Bo-Berry Waffle, drizzled with a sweet Bo-Berry Honey Glaze.
Bojangles marketing blog post
I’ve written about Bojangles more than once. I recreated and covered the Bojangles Cajun filet biscuit combo in maybe too much detail, which I put a whole bunch of time into. That’s when I shared the full recipe for the Cajun chicken filet biscuit sandwich.
Bojangles is a fast food chain that has a bit of a special place in my mind because of my past experience there, but I’ve heard that things have gone downhill a bit after they were purchased by a Capital Management firm in 2018, and expanded their reach across the country.
I also have a recipe for a Bojangles Bo-Berry biscuit copycat, which produces really good biscuits that I have made several times for friends and family to enjoy.
My full collection of Bojangles-inspired recipes is tagged to be easy to find.
Bojangles’ Instagram is promoting their new Chicken & Bo-Berry Waffle sandwich.
Bo is still not in the Chicago area, though, so I can’t really rush out and try a Chicken and Bo-Berry Waffle sandwich. Instead, I’ll have to make my version at home.
Follow along as I show you how you can do it, too.
Sandwich-sized blueberry or Bo-berry waffles
In prepping for this particular waffle-focused sandwich, I bought a tiny Dash waffle maker. After using it a few times, to make blueberry and regular waffles, I sort of love it. It’s about 4 inches across, and it heats up in about 4 minutes. Once heated up, it will cook a waffle in somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes, depending on how dark you want it. You can buy Dash waffle makers with removable plates, which will allow you to have flat surfaces or even a waffled surface that looks like holiday themes like Santa or a Ghost, but I just got the regular one because I am old and boring.
The best part is that this waffle maker is only 10 bucks. If you’re cooking for a few kids or a small crowd, it might even make sense to buy 2 or 3 of these things and have them all cooking at the same time to speed up breakfast production.
Note: You do not need to buy or use the Dash waffle maker. You can use any waffle maker for this sandwich, just try to figure out from the waffle maker instructions how much batter it needs, or you can do a few tests yourself to figure it out. Luckily, you can eat the results. If your waffle maker makes waffles larger than sandwich-sized, just cut a waffle in half or fourths and use the smaller pieces to sandwich some fried chicken.
If you end up with a Dash waffle maker like the one I bought, you might also want to buy a 1.5-inch tablespoon scoop like I’ve shown in a photo below. I found in my tests that just a touch over 3 tablespoons of batter work to make a pretty good waffle that fills out the whole bottom of the waffle maker.
The photos below are of me making a regular (non-blueberry) waffle.
The blueberry waffle recipe I’m using here is simply a buttermilk waffle recipe that you can add blueberries to when it’s time to cook the waffles. Add some batter to your waffle maker and then drop in the blueberries before closing the lid. It’s important to only add a few blueberries because they will get wet when cooked and could make the top of your waffle very soggy. For the Dash waffle maker, I found 5 or 6 blueberries were plenty.
When you’re working with tablespoon amounts of batter, I do not suggest adding blueberries right into the big bowl with all the rest of the batter. That’s going to change up the volume in each tablespoon scoop. What I do instead is just drop blueberries into the batter inside the waffle maker. This means you will have a blueberry side of each waffle and a non-blueberry side. The waffles are thin enough that you’ll never know the difference when you take a bite, but visually, there will be a side that looks like it has a whole lot more blueberry/purple color on it. All of this becomes slightly important when you turn these into a sandwich, as I’ll explain during the sandwich assembly content down below.
Here’s my blueberry buttermilk waffle recipe that I used for this sandwich. It’s a good waffle recipe that you can also just eat on their own with a big glug of maple syrup and some butter.
Blueberry buttermilk waffles
Waffles are great. Blueberry waffles can add color and fun to an already fun breakfast option. These waffles are light and crispy and are perfect with a bit of butter and syrup.
Get RecipeCajun fried chicken cutlet
I’ve fried a whole bunch of chicken for this sandwich blog. The chicken I fried for this sandwich is based on the Cajun filet recipe that I shared at the end of 2022 when I wrote about my favorite fast food combo meal. It’s a thin cutlet of chicken breast that has been buttermilk marinated with some seasonings and a bit of cayenne pepper powder, which tenderizes the meat and gives it just a touch of spice.
After the chicken has marinated for at least 1 hour or much longer if possible, the chicken is dredged through a seasoned flour to coat and then fried.
Once the chicken is coated in seasoned flour, I fry it in peanut oil at 350 F (176 C) for about 3 minutes per side. You can check and probably should with a meat thermometer, but at this temperature, as long as the chicken is fairly thin, it should be fully cooked in 6 minutes or at the very most, 8 minutes. The exterior of the chicken should also be very golden brown and crispy.
Make sure to move the chicken directly from the hot oil to a cooling rack over some paper towels to drain off any super-hot oil that might still be on the exterior. This also keeps the fried chicken off of a surface so that the bottom of the chicken doesn’t sog itself up by any steam that it is creating. The rack keeps it up so that air can access all sides while it cools a bit.
Hot honey compound butter
This is a very simple combination of two ingredients to create a spreadable butter that contains a bit of sweetness and just a hint of spice. Because it’s just two ingredients, it takes about 5 minutes to create it, and then you can wrap it up in plastic wrap or parchment and stash it in the refrigerator for use later. This is great on regular waffles and blueberry waffles, and it would also be good on top of a freshly seared steak as well.
Bring the hot honey butter out of the fridge while you’re prepping the rest of your sandwich ingredients so that the butter has a bit of a chance to warm to room temperature, so that it will melt a bit better and incorporate itself as a bit of a sauce with the blueberry maple syrup.
Hot honey butter
Add a bit of spice to butter and use it to top pancakes, waffles, or even a freshly seared steak. Works great on toast, too!
Get RecipeBlueberry maple syrup
This blueberry maple syrup recipe requires three ingredients: maple syrup, blueberries, and lemon juice. And you can even skip the lemon juice if you don’t have any. Add those ingredients to a small to medium pot over medium heat. Bring the mixture to simmer and then simmer for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes of simmering, the blueberries should have all burst and excreted their juice into the syrup, and the mixture will be fairly lumpy with blueberry skins and seeds. You can let this cool and leave the skins and seeds in the syrup if you’re lazy and don’t mind those pieces mixed in, or you can strain off all the skins with a strainer or sieve. That’s what I did. I wanted to put my blueberry syrup in a squeeze bottle, and the skins would have stopped everything up.
Here’s the recipe for a blueberry syrup that works great in this andwich recipe, and it’s also an ingredient in a new cocktail that my wife cooked up. Keep scrolling to read about that.
Blueberry maple syrup
This recipe infuses blueberry flavor into sweet maple syrup, elevating your next waffle or pancake experience.
Get RecipeA blueberry maple gin cocktail
When I was talking to my wife about making some blueberry maple syrup, she was actually paying attention, and she said she knew of a drink that she would like to make that used a blueberry syrup, which probably would have been something like blueberries, sugar, and water to make a simple syrup. We talked for a minute or two, and there was no reason why the addition of maple syrup should ruin the drink experience, so she adjusted her recipe to create this Bo-Berry maple gin sour cocktail. Here’s the recipe.
Here’s my wife’s blueberry maple syrup gin sour recipe. If you’re already making the maple syrup, it only makes sense that you use it in multiple applications. Go for it!
Bo-berry maple gin sour
This gin-focused cocktail brings out a bit of brightness from lemon that balances out the sweet, blueberry flavors and creamy mouthfeel. It's sweet, tart, and bright in a pretty purple package.
Get RecipeWaffle sandwich assembly
There are four components of this sandwich: two waffles, hot honey butter, blueberry maple syrup, and a crispy fried chicken cutlet. You can arrange these ingredients however you want, but here’s a slideshow of what I did.
One thing I do suggest, if you’re not taking photos of your food, is to arrange the waffles with the blueberry side in toward the sandwich. This leaves the exterior of the sandwich to be a bit less sticky. Eat it however you want, but the blueberries will be a little bit messier if you’re mashing your fingers in there while taking a bite.
Place a blueberry waffle down blueberry side up. 
Add some blueberry maple syrup to an already blueberry situation. 
Bring over your piece of crispy Cajun fried chicken breast. 
Add some hot honey butter to the warm chicken so it starts to melt a little. 
Drizzle on a bit more blueberry maple syrup. 
For a neater, but less interesting looking sandwich, keep the blueberry sides of each waffle facing inside the sandwich. 
This is the non-blueberry side of a waffle which will give you a less messy experience by keeping your fingers blueberry free.
As you’ll see below, I made one version with the blueberries facing inside the sandwich, and all the rest of the photos were taken with the blueberries in the waffle exposed so that the photos would show that they were blueberry waffles.
The Fried chicken and Bo-Berry waffle sandwich photos and recipe
Check out a bunch of photos of this sandwich that I ate last week. Scroll past the beauties and get the full recipe so you can make this one at home.
Bojangles can’t touch us, we’re doing it, doing it, and doing it well.
Fried chicken and blueberry waffle sandwich (Bojangles copycat)
This sandwich combines sweet blueberry waffles, a crispy fried chicken cutlet, and a blueberry maple syrup to create a savory and sweet experience that's to die for. This is based on a Bojangles limited-time offering, menu item.
Ingredients:
Blueberry maple syrup- 1 cup maple syrup
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 150 grams all-purpose flour (1 1/4 cup)
- 17 grams baking powder (1 tablespoon)
- 12 grams sugar (1 tablespoon)
- 3 grams baking soda (1/2 teaspoon)
- 3 grams salt (1/2 teaspoon)
- 1 whole, beaten egg
- 24 grams canola or vegetable oil (2 tablespoons)
- 224 grams buttermilk (1 cup)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 large chicken breast, cut into two pieces (or two smaller ones)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon paprika
- 1⁄2 peanut oil or another neutral frying oil (2 inches deep in your pot/pan)
- butter or hot honey butter (optional)
Directions:
Buttermilk marinade for chicken: in a medium bowl, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon paprika to 1 cup of buttermilk (add hot sauce if you want extra spice) and whisk to combine. Put two sandwich-sized pieces of chicken into a zip-top bag or bowl with a lid. Pour buttermilk marinade over the chicken and store in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.
Blueberry maple syrup: add maple syrup, blueberries, and lemon juice to a small skillet or pot over medium heat and bring the mixture to a simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
For the last minute or so, using a spoon or potato masher, mash up the softened blueberries to release more of their juice into the mixture. After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and remove the pan or pot from the stove.
Using a strainer, strain the syrup into a container with a lid to try to remove as many seeds and skins from the syrup as you can. Store in a sealed container or squeeze bottle in the refrigerator for up to a month.
Blueberry waffles: add all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine thoroughly.
In another bowl, add the whole egg and beat. Add buttermilk and vegetable/canola oil to the bowl with the egg and stir your wet ingredients to combine.
Add your wet ingredients into the bowl with your dry ingredients and stir just long enough that you no longer see dry flour. This batter does not need to be super smooth a few lumps are ok. Leave the bowl on the counter while you wait for your waffle maker to come to temperature.
I typically use a heaping 1/4 measure to scoop out my waffles into the waffle maker. Waffle makers are different, so you might need more or less for a perfect waffle.
Once you have the batter scooped into the waffle maker, quickly add 8 to 10 blueberries scattered across the top. Close the lid and cook.
Once your waffle is cooked according to the device specifics, or once it has turned your favorite shade of tan/brown, remove from the heat to a sheet pan or cookie pan and place in a 200-degree oven to keep the waffles warm until the rest are finished cooking.
Chicken frying: make seasoned flour by combining flour with all the spices, salt, and pepper in a bowl or pan that is large enough for a piece of chicken to lie flat in the flour.
Remove one piece of chicken at a time from the marinade and dredge in the seasoned flour mixture until thoroughly coated on all sides. Place the fully coated chicken onto a piece of parchment or a sheet pan rack to rest.
Heat 2 inches of peanut oil in a skillet to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Fry each piece of chicken for 6 to 7 minutes or until it reaches 165 degrees F. You'll probably want to fry for 3 minutes on the first side and then flip it to make sure you're getting the level of browning that you want. Continue cooking on the other side.
After frying, place the finished chicken on a cooling rack over paper towels to drain some of the oil away.
Sandwich assembly: to build the sandwich, place one blueberry waffle down and top it with a bit of blueberry syrup.
Add the crispy fried chicken cutlet on top, and then top the cutlet with some butter (here's a great hot honey butter recipe) and then more of the blueberry maple syrup.
Close the sandwich with a second blueberry waffle and then serve.
Check back next week
Next week, we might be making a sandwich with some ground meat in it. That’s all the hint you get.
