KFC Gravy Comes From A Box — Here's What To Buy If You're A Fan

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Whether you eat KFC gravy with mashed potatoes or dip your chicken in it, it enhances everything with its savory flavor. If you're a longtime fan of the fast food chain's gravy, you might have wondered what makes it taste so good — and if this recipe can be replicated at home. One Reddit user spilled the beans, posting photos from an unnamed source depicting cases of gravy mix in a KFC kitchen. The case's ingredients list revealed that the franchise uses a recipe comparable to McCormick Brown Gravy Mix to create this finger-lickin'-good sauce, with ingredients such as rendered chicken fat, barley malt extract powder, onion powder, and extractives of paprika.

There are several differences between KFC's brown gravy mix and the one McCormick sells to the public, so this isn't a 1:1 swap. McCormick & Company has been a longtime supplier of KFC's seasonings and sauces, and helps create batches of the Original Recipe used for KFC's chicken, so it's not surprising that it would handle the gravy, too. Yet the McCormick's Brown Gravy Mix you'll find on store shelves uses rendered beef fat instead of chicken, and it adds ingredients like white pepper, celery seed, garlic, and onion instead of onion powder. The Reddit user's source claimed that KFC has McCormick formulate a unique version of the gravy recipe.

If you haven't tried this gravy mix before, taste it and see how it stacks up to KFC's. Its primary flavors are garlic, onion, and pepper, while disodium inosinate and guanylate (which is also in KFC's recipe) add umami. But McCormick's mix isn't the only reason why KFC gravy tastes so good. There's another ingredient KFC uses — or used to use.

A few Reddit commenters on the same post, including one who claims to have previously worked for the chicken chain, reported that the secret to KFC gravy's unique taste is the addition of cracklings. These are solid bits of seasoned flour that remain in the oil after deep-frying the chicken. They claim kitchen workers would scrape up the cracklings and add them to the dry powder used to make the gravy. In other words, KFC's Original Recipe of 11 herbs and spices is what makes the chain's gravy pop.

KFC's chicken recipe is notoriously top secret. However, Joe Ledington, nephew of Harland Sanders' wife Claudia, owns her old scrapbook containing a handwritten recipe that could be the blend Sanders used. The spices include salt, thyme, basil, oregano, celery salt, black pepper, dry mustard, paprika, garlic salt, ground ginger, and white pepper. Along with a unique dairy ingredient, these spices are mixed with 2 cups of white flour to create the breading.

KFCs in the U.K. were revealed to use the cracklings method in the 2015 documentary series "The Billion Dollar Chicken Shop." It's not certain if KFCs across the United States still do the same. One Reddit user stated, "Unfortunately, according to current US KFC employees, they no longer do this with the current gravy." KFC's gravy was undergoing changes as far back as 1970 for the sake of efficiency, which displeased Sanders, so it's difficult to say how much of the original recipe remains today — it's no wonder some KFC customers have complaints. Nevertheless, at least you can come close to recreating KFC's gravy in its current state with a packet of McCormick.