Fried chicken and waffles has been a beloved American staple for years, but now the classic dish is getting a major makeover in the most delicious way possible!
These days, chopped up fried chicken is being served in sweet waffle cones — just like ice cream — at restaurants all over the country.
Chick’nCone in New York City is leading the charge with its handheld fried chicken waffle cones and the foodies at Devour Power captured this mesmerizing video of how the over-the-top dish is made.
According to the store's owner, there’s often line out the door every day and a 20-minute wait for people to get their hands on the portable meal.
“We serve about 450 cones a day and there are days when we’ve event hit 1,000,” co-owner Jonathan Almanzar told TODAY Food. “We go through about 2,500 pounds of chicken per week.”
Instead of using bone-in chicken like the classic dish, here boneless tenders are coated with panko breadcrumbs and fried until they’re super crispy. Then they’re chopped up into bite-sized pieces, tossed with a homemade sauce and scooped into freshly made vanilla waffle cones.
The fried chicken cones are available in several different flavors like spicy ranch, tangy Buffalo blue cheese, smoky barbecue and sweet-and-savory cinnamon-maple.
There are also off-the-menu specials like an over-the-top Sriracha mac and cheese fried chicken waffle cone. The fried chicken bites are tossed with gooey mac and cheese, then shoveled into a waffle cone that’s swirled with spicy Sriracha sauce.
“We spent a lot of time figuring out the perfect mac and cheese,” said Almanzar.
The fried chicken waffle cones have become so popular that Almanzar and his business partner, Josh Lanier, have sold 29 franchises of Chick’nCone — and they’ll all serve the mac and cheese cone! The first franchise location is set to open Aug. 13 in Fort Collins, Colorado.
In the meantime, there are other places throughout the country that are serving up the trendy food, like Zero Degrees in Las Vegas, Bruxie in Los Angeles and Papa Bear's Chicken in Indianapolis.
Even Minute Maid Park in Houston, the baseball stadium of 2017 World Series champions Houston Astros, has a vendor that serves fried chicken waffle cones. This dish is definitely a home run!