Nashville Hot Chicken

Nashville is famous for a dish called "hot chicken" as I learned when searching for what we should eat while we were visiting the city. Hot chicken is fried chicken, prepared in a special way. They marinate the meat in seasoned water then dip in flour, fry it, and cover it with a paste that can be regulated to match your level of heat comfort and served over bread with pickles and more sauce.

There were two places I saw consistently recommended: Hattie B's and Princes. We went to Hattie B's for our hot chicken, as it was close to the Parthenon. Next time we visit Nashville, we'll have to try Prince’s since we weren’t in town long enough to try both and do a comparison taste test.

Hattie B’s featured six levels of heat for their hot chicken: “Southern (no heat), Mild (touch of heat), Medium (warming up), Hot! (feel the heat), Damn Hot! (fire starter), and Shut the Cluck Up!!! (burn notice).” We have different tolerances in our family, so I went for the medium and Vagish had to try the hottest available option.

We also got fries, pimento mac & cheese, red skin potato salad, creamy coleslaw, extra pickles and something called “Nashville Comeback Sauce” that came in little cups for dipping and was amazing. The medium had some heat to it, for sure, but I was able to eat it mostly comfortably with the bread and pickles (so happy I ordered extra!). The kids were not. However, they loved the fries and were happy with that. The mac & cheese had a little bite to it as well, and was delicious. Vagish suffered. His food was edible, but too hot to really enjoy or to taste. Later that night he had some of mine that I hadn’t finished and declared that the right level of heat to be able to really taste the flavor of the hot chicken.

The hot chicken was super moist, flavorful, and delicious. I can see why this is a must-try here in Nashville and plan to check out Prince’s next time I’m here.