The KFC brand has been built around the legend of these 11 herbs and spices, first added to chicken by Colonel Sanders back in the 1930s.
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Joe Ledington, Colonel Sanders’ nephew by marriage, claimed he found KFC’s secret recipe when he was looking through a family scrapbook.
A writer from the Chicago Tribune recently got the opportunity to head to the home of KFC, Kentucky, to meet none other than Joe Ledington, the real life nephew of Colonel Sanders.
The reported flipped through an old family scrapbook without stopping to think that the family secret may be hidden in the pages. Mystery and a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.
“That is the original 11 herbs and spices that were supposed to be so secretive”, Ledington blabbed, foolishly also letting the man from the Tribune take a photo of it for sharing on today’s internet. Ledington would later backpedal.
A hand-written copy of the secret recipe, signed by Sanders, is locked up in a safe inside a vault in KFC’s Louisville headquarters.
“Many people have made these claims over the years and no one has been accurate – this one isn’t either”, KFC said in a statement.
You can see the full recipe in the clip above and image below, but the blend is largely made of ingredients found on almost any home spice rack ― with one possible exception, especially at the time the recipe was first written. Ledington presented the last will and testament of Sanders’s second wife, and a handwritten recipe for a fried chicken recipe containing 11 herbs and spices was scrawled on the back.
How was it? Well, really good.
KFC’s parent company responded by suing the Settles.
So, try it for yourself, or.do what I would do and hit the drive-through for some KFC fried chicken. The company still says that the secret recipe has yet to be revealed.
Chicago Tribune later went on to test the recipe and, after adding a dash of MSG, found that the resulting chicken tasted pretty darn close to the original.
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So sure, many of us have probably tried to duplicate this (hello, Pinterest) in the past, we’re sure that this weekend and many weekends to follow will be dedicated to perfecting the seasoning and cooking of what may or may not be the world’s biggest foodie secret unveiled.
