Louisiana Fish Fry Products, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is on the verge of wrapping up a cross-country competition to find the best fried chicken sandwich. It recently hosted one of its competitions in Houston. The local winner, Rashad Jiles, will compete for the national title in New York with his Thai Fried Chicken Sandwich. 

We couldn’t attend the Houston competition, so Louisiana Fish Fry Products graciously sent us samples of some of its products to try. Tony Pizzolato, who started out with a produce stand in 1959, founded Louisiana Fish Fry Products after adding crawfish, crab and shrimp to his offerings. He discovered that customers were just as eager to get his recipes, such as his fish-fry batter, as his raw ingredients, so the company started creating mixes with Pizzolato’s preferred seasonings starting in the early 1970s. 

These days, Louisiana Fish Fry Products’ line has expanded to include batters for air-frying and oven-baking, as well as entrée-starters for jambalaya and gumbo. If you’re interested in trying a variety of products (or getting a gift for your favorite home cook), there’s a reasonably priced gift box available to buy online. I also found a big selection of Louisiana Fish Fry Products on Amazon. 

Unless you’ve been living off-planet (and maybe even if you have), you know there’s been a fried chicken sandwich craze the last few years. So it only made sense for Louisiana Fish Fry Products to add The Original Fried Chicken Sandwich Seasoned Coating Mix. The ingredients are bleached wheat flour, yellow corn flour, salt, yellow corn meal, cornstarch, dried garlic, natural flavor (whatever that is) and spices. 

There’s a color-coding system for the packages. The red and yellow “at Home” products, which include the fried chicken sandwich mix, mean no deep fryer is needed. I used my trusty, large Lodge cast iron skillet with only about an inch of olive oil, and the batter performed perfectly. You can see the results and how easy it was to prepare in my video

Before hosting its competitions looking for the perfect fried chicken sandwich, the company turned to ex-NFL athlete and “Chief Fry Officer”, Marcus Spears, to develop his own, by which to compare all the competition entries. The end result was the Big Swagu Chicken Sandwich topped with seared cheddar cheese and a fried egg. I tried the recipe — and let me tell you, that was quite a satisfying Saturday-night-at-home dinner.  

The sunny-side-up egg nested in fried cheddar cheese is a really fun touch. The cheese spreads out in the pan and gets crispy and frilly. It makes quite an impression as part of the sandwich, adding not only flavor but a dramatic, frizzy halo that extends beyond the bun. Making it took only about 20 minutes, and that included deboning chicken thighs (I didn’t have boneless; I always have bone-in in my freezer), mixing the batter, dipping the chicken thighs, lightly pounding them for uniform thickness and shredding the cheese.  

If you prefer a more traditional chicken sandwich, there’s a video tutorial on YouTube. 

Now that I’ve successfully made some wonderful fried chicken sandwiches at home, my next Louisiana Fish Fry Products to try out are Spicy Fried Chicken Wings Seasoned Coating Mix, Chicken Tenders Seasoned Coating Mix and Seasoned Chicken Fry Batter Mix. There won’t be a need for me to leave home to satisfy my (considerable and perpetual) fried chicken cravings for a while! 

Phaedra Cook

Phaedra Cook has written about Houston’s restaurant and bar scene since 2010. She was a regular contributor to My Table magazine (now closed) and was the lead restaurant critic for the Houston Press for two years, eventually being promoted to food editor. Cook founded Houston Food Finder in November 2016 and has been its editor and publisher ever since.