KFC's Secret Blend of Herbs and Spices Cracked?

by Sarah LeTrent, Posted Jul 20th 2009 @ 6:00PM


KFC Chicken Photo: Sikachu!/flickr

A former Wall Street executive has plucked himself a new career trying to unlock Col. Harland Sander's fried-chicken secret.

Ron Douglas, a former finance director at J.P. Morgan, has been experimenting in the kitchen over the last few years in an attempt to crack KFC's world-famous Original Recipe, the New York Post reports. With his sixth attempt, Douglas thinks he's finally done it.

"Nobody knows what those 11 herbs and spices are, Douglas told the paper. "But if you taste my chicken, you would find the flavor very similar to KFC."

Douglas isn't alone in his quest to fake favorite fast-food and chain-restaurant recipes. He found a burgeoning community of copycat enthusiasts online, so he decided to create his own copycat recipe Web site, RecipeSecrets.net. Douglas left J.P. Morgan in 2007 to manage the site full-time.

He self-published a cookbook of recreated recipes, "America's Most Wanted Recipes," which Simon & Schuster republished earlier this month. The book includes the recipe for the "decoded" KFC blend.

But KFC isn't worried about Douglas' copycat recipe.

"Colonel Sanders' Secret Recipe of 11 herbs and spices is one of the most famous recipes in the world, and the precautions taken to safeguard the identity of the ingredients is second to none," Rick Maynard, a KFC spokesman, told Slashfood. "Plenty of people have tried to duplicate the recipe over the years, but there is still only one place to get authentic Original Recipe Chicken -- at a KFC restaurant."

Will you try the recipe?
I'll make it.	6558 (41.5%)
Nothing beats the Colonel's.	4488 (28.4%)
I don't like KFC.	4772 (30.2%)

Filed Under: Food News, Fast Food
Tags: colonel sanders, ColonelSanders, fast food at home, FastFoodAtHome, kentucky fried chicken, KentuckyFriedChicken, kfc, original recipe, OriginalRecipe, recipe secrets, RecipeSecrets, ron douglas, RonDouglas

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 6)

7-20-2009 @10:14PM Tom said... if you like kfc chicken ,then this is a great breakthrough in technolagy........imagine eating a great tasting bird cooked in a clean enviroment!!!! whahaha yeah i said it kfc is the dirtyist place this side the mississippi!!!!!!!
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7-20-2009 @10:24PM BIRD said... As for KFC, The secret ingredient is licorice.
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7-21-2009 @3:46PM BIRD said... For KFC The secreti ngredient is licorice
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7-20-2009 @10:35PM bigsalseech said... chicken delight was good chicken. and they delivered.
ahhh... the good ole days.
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7-20-2009 @10:36PM BIRD said... Three of the best chicken restaurants are in the South, Chick-Fali with a cow as their mascot, "Don't eat the beef" the first chicken sandwich with a pickle.
Zaxbys, boneless chicken with the ultimate sauce called inferno, you have to agree to order that, hot hot hot, then there is Bonjangos, some what like Popeyes here. The pieces are larger, more flavorful and they have the biscuit sandwich with a slice of county ham all day. In the South all food must be put into a dumster at closeing and chained. No carry over to the next day????
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7-20-2009 @10:38PM superb said... OK, Another finance guy trying to sell his book to take more of our money! I'll take my money to KFC!
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7-20-2009 @10:52PM Bob said... Back in the mid-80's, William Poundstone for his book, "Big Secrets," obtained some official franchisee KFC chicken coating mix, and the lab analysis found only white flour, salt, pepper, and MSG. Sorry, no 11 herbs and/or spices. Consumers of Col. Sanders original chicken have lamented for years that his recipes (especially his gravy) have been incrementally dumbed down as KFC got more and more corporate.
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7-20-2009 @10:51PM Gobo said... What's going on with these comments? Did the Something Awful forums spill over into Slashfood, or do all the 14-year-olds just show up when fast food is mentioned?

The book BIG SECRETS had KFC's chicken analyzed back in the early 80s, and they discovered trace elements of spices like paprika, but 99% of the 'secret blend' was simply salt, pepper, and MSG.
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7-20-2009 @10:59PM klm129 said... Thanks for the laughs folks.
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7-20-2009 @11:02PM lita said... KFC hasn't made decent chicken in years. And it seems to be getting progressively worse. While the selection of spices might be good, pressure cooking it in oil just doesn't taste good. And those horrid shards they call popcorn chicken? Even worse. And as ibbecpec7 said, things were much better when they provided dinner rolls instead of those awful biscuits. (Biscuits are much cheaper.)
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7-20-2009 @11:02PM Me & Mine said... My fried chicken is 100% better than KFC. In my home and family, if I even hint that I am making fried chicken we immediatly need a mop to clean up all the drool...
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7-20-2009 @11:22PM CMW said... BACK IN 94, A LADY WAS A GUEST ON THE PHIL DONAHUE SHOW. SHE HAD DISCOVERED THE SECRET OF SEVERAL NAME BRAND RECIPES, ONE OF WHICH WAS KFC SECRET SPICES. I BOUGHT THE BOOKLET, AND TRIED IT OUT, AND IT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME TASTE. ALSO IN HER BOOKLET WERE TWINKIES, BIG MAC SPECIAL SAUCE, ORIO COOKIES, CRACKER JACKS, ALL OF WHICH WERE ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS, AND YOU COULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE. THERE WERE OTHER RECIPES AS WELL. I WOULD BE WILLING TO TRY YOUR RECIPE, TO SEE HOW CLOSE YOU COME TO THE ORIGINAL TASTE. FUN STUFF.
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7-20-2009 @11:30PM troy said... KFC doe not taste the same as it did in the 70's.
I think they change the recipe a long time ago.
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7-20-2009 @11:24PM Larry said... Who cares nutjob. It's easier to go down to KFC and get the real deal. I also like Church's Chicken for a change in pace........I pay my money I get what I like and I am happy. All these nuts wasting their lives trying to figure out the secret 11 spices. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If you want to impress me invent something new moron.......
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7-20-2009 @11:27PM jessica said... Beth D. ........Dude you are way off the subject.....Talking about loosing weight and sneakers?!
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7-20-2009 @11:38PM Dylan and Taran said... Beth,

You can have your grilled chicken....but grilled chicken does NOT an old-fashioned picnic make. Granted most anything in abundance is not good for a person, but fried chicken occasionally won't make that much difference to an overall healthy diet. I love my Mum's extra-crispy fried chicken, and her fried fish-'n-chips is excellent. We enjoy KFC in the summer---get a bucket of 1/2 original recipe, 1/2 extra crispy and my wife and Mum do the rest with potato salad, and all the goodies that go along with it. I have to agree that the biscuits from KFC suck. There is too much baking powder or baking soda in them, and they are gummy. There is a BoJangles about 4 hours from our house; we really like their biscuits, so we buy several dozen at a time, and freeze them. I am not a big fan of biscuits--no matter who makes them but the BoJangles are quite good buttered, toasted in the oven, then spread with grape jelly.

My son spent a summer frying chicken at KFC (Punishment for the speeding ticket he managed to rack going to be beach one weekend). The 11 herbs and spices are not mentioned anywhere on anything distributed by KFC. People have been trying to duplicate this and the batter Long John Sliver's dips their fish in prior to frying. No one has made a perfect clone of that either.

I have never had a problem with KFC being laxative. It wouldn 't be the chicken itself, anyway, Mike. It's the grease it's fried in. Many people cannot tolerate any kind of cooking oil, other than olive oil.
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7-20-2009 @11:38PM Willie Frank said... I think they changed the oil they fry the chicken in and that is what has changed the taste and causes an upset stomach. I bet they use some kind of soy oil or something.
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7-20-2009 @11:43PM jackie said... Oh My Gosh.. I went to KFC on Tuesday and they were closing and told me to wait 40 mins for grease temp to get perfect as someone bout out all their chicken just before close. I havent eaten there in at least 3-4 years. I was soooo excited to get real fresh chicken that was deep fried in clean fresh grease. I got home and it was soggy with the fresh grease and the taste. Yuk, So bland and gross. WHat did they do tot he recipe?? SO expensive now and tastes soggy and bland.
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