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Salted Egg Chicken Recipe

[Check out my latest Salted Egg Chicken and Buttermilk Waffle Recipe]

If someone is to ask me now what I think is the national food of Singapore, I would be keen to say it’s ‘anything salted egg’ whether it’s salted egg chicken, salted egg prawns, salted egg squids or salted egg crabs. These days, we could even get salted egg croissants, salted egg tarts, salted egg potato chips, salted egg fish skins, salted egg ice cream, salted egg donuts and the list goes on and on.

Salted egg to me is a comfort food and this Salted Egg Chicken recipe never fails to make my husband swoon over it because the smell of the salted egg yolks just makes us salivate and one bite is good enough to have us hanker for more. I like my version with lots of crispy curry leaves that are just so aromatic. Do you?

Check out my Salted Egg Prawn Recipe and other tantalising fried chicken recipes too – Salt and Pepper Chicken and Lemon Chicken – enjoy! 🙂

Salted Egg Chicken Recipe

Salted Egg Chicken Recipe
2-3
  • 600g boneless chicken leg meat, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 cup tapioca flour
  • salt & ground white pepper
  • sunflower oil for frying
For the salted egg yolk sauce
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • handful of curry leaves
  • 2 tbsp evaporated milk
  • 4 salted egg yolks, steamed & mashed
Marinate chicken with egg, salt and pepper.
Dredge chicken pieces in tapioca flour, shake off the excess and transfer onto a clean dry plate.
Deep fry the chicken in batches till golden brown and crispy. Drain and transfer onto paper towels to remove excess oil.
For the salted egg yolk sauce, heat olive oil in a separate pan and melt the butter till the mixture turns foamy. Pan-fry the curry leaves till crisp and fragrant.
Add the salted egg yolks and cook till the mixture becomes bubbly.
Reduce heat and add evaporated milk and a pinch of salt.
Return the fried chicken to the pan and toss till evenly coated.

46 Comments

  • esther says:

    Hi! can i ask if there’s an alternative to steaming the egg yolks?

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi Esther, you can just boil the salted eggs in whole (like how you’d do for hard-boiled chicken eggs) and then remove the yolks from the whites. Works the same. Cheers!

  • Clorence says:

    It would be great to make a video of it!!

  • yang says:

    Hi, may know where to get salted egg yolks by itself in singapore? Or do u have to buy the whole egg and seperate them?

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi, I’ve never seen salted egg yolks being sold on their own so yes, I would say buy the whole eggs and separate them yourself which is really easy to do. Cheers.

  • jenny says:

    Just cooked it today. Best recipe ever! The chicken taste so great and I’m definitely going to cook it again real soon. No need to eat from outside anymore coz this is better than outside ones. Thanks so much for sharing!

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi Jenny, I’m so glad to know you like the recipe. It also works with prawns, squids, sliced lotus root or potato chips. Give it a try! 😉

  • linda says:

    I think geylang serai market sell salted egg yolk nvm later i go check it out đ

    • Geri Tan says:

      Most if not all markets would sell salted eggs at the egg stalls so shouldn’t be a problem to get them. Otherwise, all supermarkets will have them too. Cheers.

  • Kathy Liang says:

    Theu do sell only the salted egg yolk .. Market ..

  • Chan says:

    Hi Geri, can i ask what type of butter you use? Cause few months back i tried cooking salted egg chicken and failed badly!! I melted the butter(Emborg Unsalted) on my pan and tried to mix with the yolk for less than a min, the whole mixture got burnt!! The fire level that i set is low thou…Or will adding olive oil helps to prevent my mixture from burning?

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi Chan, the butter you use is fine but do note butter has a low heating point so if you don’t add oil (olive, canola, sunflower, peanut or coconut oil works fine), it will burn very quickly in your pan regardless whether you put on low heat or not. Give it a try again and see how it goes. Good luck!

  • Grace says:

    Hi Geri,

    Like to check, the salted egg that you bought is those cooked type? At the supermarket, I saw only those salted egg, covered with black coating outside. Where can I get those Fresh salted egg? Kindly advise.

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi Grace, those covered with black coating from the supermarket or wet market are fresh salted eggs. The ones I use are exactly that and you just need to cook them to extract the yolks. Cheers.

      • jomel says:

        it is better if you could get those salted eggs covered with soil. Extract the yolk out of it then steam. This help to add a bit moist to eggs so it wont be feel dry and easily burnt and it make a perfect foamy bubbly finish with that moisture.

  • AD says:

    Hi just came across this recipe. Any alternative if I don’t have tapioca flour? Thanks!

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi, the closest alternative is probably potato flour because corn flour or plain flour doesn’t really give the same crisp as tapioca flour when fried. I would still strongly recommend tapioca flour rather than substituting it for something else. Cheers.

      • Ying says:

        Hi there! If I were to use this recipe for potato chips, would the sauce make the chips turn soggy? I read that it’s better to use salted egg yolk powder but I’ll probably have trouble getting that. Thanks!!

        • Geri Tan says:

          Hi, my recipe is the dry version, it’s not really a sauce that can drench. It doesn’t matter whether you use powder or fresh yolk because it’s the amount of liquid (oil, butter, evaporated milk) you add that will affect the crispiness of the ingredient you’re using. Hope this helps. Cheers.

  • Syirah says:

    Hi i just came across this recipe. Any alternative for the evaporated milk?

  • Vani says:

    Can use normal salted egg instead of duck,wats the difference?

  • Mandy says:

    Hello! Need clarification for Step 4. Once the olive oil is heated up, do you add butter inside the oil and mix? Or pour the oil into the melted butter? Thanks.

    • Geri Tan says:

      Hi, you can do either way but I prefer to add oil first before the butter as the latter burns up rather quickly so the olive oil is just an additional medium to raise the heating point (hence to prevent quick burning). Let me know how it goes when you have the chance to make this. Enjoy!

  • Vernise says:

    Hi, would you recommend double fry if i am using the wings instead of thigh meat?

    • Geri Tan says:

      Sure, that sounds good. I do double-fry my chicken sometimes to ensure max. crisp and crunch. Let me know how it goes when you’ve the chance to make these. Cheers.

  • anna says:

    Hi, can i not use butter? Just wondering

  • Hi! I was craving for a salted egg recipe and this by far has the most enticing picture on google. Will definitely try this recipe this weekend! This is Yen of birdsnchandeliers by the way 😀

  • Alen says:

    Is it fine without the curry leaves?

    • Geri Tan says:

      I wouldn’t recommend that as curry leaves are one of the main ingredients that imparts a lovely fragrance & aroma. You can try omitting them but the outcome wouldn’t be as good.

  • Firdaus says:

    Hi…. i just tried ur cooking today. And i would say it was a BIG SUCCESS!!!… tasted very good.. btw, can i know how to make it to have abit more gravy???

    • Hello Firdaus, I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe. For more sauce, you can just double the portion of ingredients for the sauce and use the same amount of chicken. Happy cooking! 🙂

  • Kelvin Julian says:

    Hi.. i was trying your recipe today. and It was really good ! love it. will definitely make it again. and may i ask your permit for using your picture to my brochure? thanks before

  • Wan says:

    I did this recipe without steaming the eggs and it tasted divine! I also added small one chilli to add some kick to it.

  • SY says:

    Hi, I just tried this and it tastes so good! I used normal milk instead and the measurements I follow by heart but the end result is still amazing! No doubt, salted egg ANYTHING is always good 🙂

  • Ng swee yik says:

    I just tried this and it tastes amazing! I did some adjustments and followed most of the measurements by heart. I used fried chicken powder, low fat milk, normal cooking oil. I’m abit dissapointed that the white part of the salted egg can’t be used in this recipe, idk what to do with it now HAHAHA Overall, it still tasted amazing but oh well, salted egg ANYTHING is always amazing <3

    • Don’t waste the whites. You can pair that with rice porridge like eating Teochew muay or mash it up and add into fried rice. Personally, I like to use the salted egg whites to make chicken porridge with olive vegetables – enhances flavour so you don’t have to add more salt. 🙂

  • meilan says:

    curry leaves are sooo expensive here in Australia. Can I use curry powder instead?

    • nope, can’t use curry powder. you’ll change the flavour of this dish. if you can’t get the leaves, just omit them from the recipe so at least the salted egg flavour is there.

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