I Recreated Thai KFC's Most Popular Item: Spicy Chicken Rice Bowl!

You may find it surprising, but KFC is the most popular fast food chain in Thailand. And Thai KFC's most popular item (and my fave) is the Spicy Chicken Rice Bowl or khao yum gai zabb. It's a rice bowl topped with popcorn chicken tossed in a laab seasoning, which is genius. I was determined to recreate it and I'm happy to report my version tastes even better than the original!

How I Figured Out This Copycat Recipe

After tasting the original rice bowl, it wasn't hard to figure out what ingredients to add because it tasted very much like a traditional Thai laab. But I had a more technical question... how is the popcorn chicken not soggy from the dressing??

In trying to figure out this recipe, I was lucky to have an intel - a friend who used to work at KFC in Thailand. Of course, KFC does not share specific recipes with their employees, and many of the ingredients arrive at the branch already made from the central kitchen. But I got the important intel on what the components are AND more importantly how they're assembled, which will turn out to be an extremely important detail!

Ingredients and Notes

Here are all the ingredients you'll need and important notes about them. For amounts, see the recipe card below.

Popcorn Chicken

• Chicken thigh, boneless skinless, cut in 1-inch chunks. I recommend first flipping the thigh over and cut off the chunky little piece of meat as your first piece to even out the thickness (see the video tutorial if you need a demo).
• Fish sauce for the marinade, soy sauce will work too.
• Sugar
• Water
• All-purpose flour
• Cornstarch. This is added to the flour to lower the total amount of gluten, which makes the coating lighter and crispier.
• Paprika
• Cayenne pepper or another spicy chili powder of your choice.
• Granulated garlic or garlic powder.
• Ground white pepper, black pepper is also fine.
• Baking powder. This will help create bubbles in the coating, making it lighter. It will also increase the browning of the chicken.

Dressing

• Raw jasmine rice for making toasted rice powder. You can also use Thai glutinous rice (sticky rice).
• Makrut lime leaves, optional. (aka kaffir lime leaves) This will add a beautiful aroma to the toasted rice powder. Highly recommended!
• Roasted chili flakes, or whatever chili powder, to taste. This is a staple ingredient in Thai cuisine, you can easily make your own and use it for all kinds of dishes! Here's my roasted chili flakes recipe.
• Chicken bouillon powder, (optional). This is to add extra umami deliciousness. There's no doubt KFC adds some form of MSG to their chicken, and in order to level the playing field, we'll need something too 😉.
• Fish sauce. Learn more about how to choose good quality fish sauce.
• Lime juice.
• Sugar.

Fresh Herbs

• Red onion or shallots.
• Mint, green onion, and/or cilantro. The original KFC version uses cilantro and green onion, but I highly recommend adding the mint which is a key herb in traditional laab. My intel said KFC doesn't use mint because it's too perishable for their operation.

Step-By-Step

Here's a bird's eye view of the process so you can see the process and what needs to be done. For ingredient amounts and the full instructions, see the recipe card below.

1. Combine the chicken with fish sauce, sugar and water. Let it sit for at least 20 mins and up to overnight.
2. Combine all the flour dredge ingredients and mix well.
3. Pour all of the marinated chicken into the flour mixture and toss well.
4. Pick up the chicken one by one and place on a tray. This is to ensure no pieces are stuck together and not properly coated. Let it sit while you make the toasted rice; this sitting time will allow to flour to be hydrated and less will fall into the oil when frying.

5. Toast the rice and makrut lime leaves together in a pan or pot, stirring constantly. Once the lime leaves are dry and curled up, pick them out.
6. Continue to toast the rice, stirring constantly, until the rice is deep brown.
7. Grind into a powder, leaving a few gritty bits. Set aside.
8. Make the liquid dressing by combining the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar and stir until dissolved.

9. Drop the chicken, one by one, into a 350°F oil. Fry for 2 minutes, then repeat with the remaining batches. (If not eating right away, you can fridge the chicken at this stage, see more on advance prep below.)
10. Once the chicken has had at least 5 minutes to cool, fry them again for 1 minutes for extra cripiness.
11. The twice-fried chicken will be darker and crispier than the single-fried. While it rests, mix up the dressing.
12. Coming the toaste rice powder, chili flakes, and bouillon powder. Add the liquid dressing and stir to create a slurry (it is important to create this slurry!)

13. Add the red onion and chicken to the slurry and quickly toss to distribute the dressing.
14. Add the fresh herbs and toss.
15. Serve over jasmine rice immediately and enjoy!

Advance Prep Tips

You can totally make this recipe all in one shot, but if your dinner prep time is limited, there are a few ways to split up the work to make cooking this meal a bit more "chill."

• For the least amount of work on serving day, fry the chicken once and make the toasted rice powder at least one day ahead. On eating day, you simply air-fry the chicken for 5 minutes at 350°F, make the dressing, and assemble.
• If you just wanna get a few quick things out of the way, cut and marinate the chicken the day before, and maybe toast the rice if you're so inclined. On the day-of start out by dredging the chicken. While it sits, you can prep the dressing ingredients.
• Of course, you can theoretically buy popcorn chicken from your local KFC and just make the laab dressing! I've not tried this, and I am told the KFC popcorn chicken doesn't taste the same in Thailand vs in the US. When combined with my dressing, the KFC one might be a bit too salty, but it's worth a try, and do let me know how it goes if you do!

Reheating and Storage

First of all, if you're not going to eat it all, don't toss the chicken with the dressing! Only toss what you will eat now, so the leftover chicken can be tossed fresh. The fried chicken can be keep in the fridge for up to a week, and to reheat, air fry the chicken for 5 minutes at a 375°F (190°C). It'll crisp up as new!

BUT if you have already tossed the chicken but just couldn't finish everything, it's not the end of the world. You can still air fry the tossed chicken the next day, but the seasoning will "bake in" to the chicken and your chicken will be dry. It'll still be tasty, though!