Crispy Chicken Pho Burger - A Vietnamese Fusion Take on Burger

A perfect getaway from traditional burger with this Vietnamese fusion food recipe: homemade crispy chicken pho burger. Fast, simple, crispy, and delicious are all what about this amazing fusion burger.

Crispy chicken pho burger

Wanna take a break from traditional burger? Well, this wonderful Vietnamese fusion food recipe will take you to a la la land.

Crispy fried chicken layered with fresh cilantro, culantro, and basil. With an addition of amazing spiced hoisin sauce as a moist maker-layer. All of these combined will create such a tasty burger which carrying the most famous tradition Vietnamese food flavor: Pho.

Resemble Pho flavor without spending hours and hours of cooking? Nothing can be better than this. Moreover, there is not many places have this fusion burger on the menu. Which makes your next homemade chicken burger be definitely one of a kind.

In case you want to fully experience a homemade Pho, check out my authentic chicken Pho recipe,

What you need for this Pho burger

This recipe is using lots of Vietnamese/Asian ingredients so if you can't find any of this in your go-to grocery store, Amazon is always available to help.

Besides regular ingredients which are burger buns (check out homemade, no-knead brioche buns) and chicken breasts, here are the Asian additional ingredients that make this fusion burger one of a kind recipe:

• Hoisin sauce - sweet hoisin sauce is what you often see at any Vietnamese pho restaurant. We use this sauce on the side or put directly in our bowl of Pho. Same concept should apply in this burger.
  • I spread a thin layer of spiced hoisin on burger buns and drizzle a little bit on crispy chicken patty. But it's totally up to you to use it either on the burger or as a side dipping sauce.
• Sriracha - another must-have ingredient in this pho burger recipe. I would not recommend use any other hot sauce besides this Sriracha sauce because it brings such a unique taste to the table.
• Cilantro, culantro and basil - these are the basic Asian herbs that normally found next to a hot bowl of Pho. And adding these to the burger will help to bring back or at least remind the eater's palate the taste of Pho.
• Beansprout - though it was not pictured in the photos, but it's definitely a wonderful ingredient when it comes to resembling Pho flavor.
  • Beansprout was replaced by a slice of tomato in my photos because after years of working in restaurant, I found out that most western customers prefer having tomato in their burger even it is a fusion one.
• Five spice powder - just a small of amount of this spice is enough. This ingredient is totally optional.
• Sweet mirin - a small amount of mirin is used to make the spiced hoisin sauce.
  • Other recipes that include this amazing Japanese ingredient are: Japanese miso eggplant, Japanese confit chicken wings, tonkotsu ramen, and other Vietnamese fusion food recipes catfish clay pot and grilled unagi.

How to make such crispy chicken Pho burger

This procedure can be used for any recipe that call for crispy fried chicken. By doing these steps, I guarantee you'll have such crispy, gorgeous golden brown pieces of fried chicken.

1. First, chicken breasts are marinated in a buttermilk mixture for at least 3 hours. You can marinade chicken 1 day ahead of time.
2. Second, double dredge chicken in flour and spice mixture.
   • It means, dredge the marinated chicken from buttermilk mixture in the flour mixture. Then dip the piece again back in the butter milk. Finally, dredge again in the flour before deep frying it.
3. Heat the oil on high heat (prefer vegetable oil or any other oil that has neutral flavor) to the desired temperature, usually around 350F (175C).
4. Carefully add dredged chicken breast in the hot oil. Then immediately turn down the heat just a little bit (ideally on medium high heat or between medium high and high heat). By doing so the oil is still hot enough to cook chicken breast but won't burning its surface.
5. Deep fry the chicken breast until done, approximately 7-10 minutes. It depends on the thickness of your cut, mine is at 1 inch thickness.
   • Two minutes before taking the chicken out, turn up the heat back to high to create such crispy and delicious golden brown outer layer.
6. Remove the deep-fried chicken breast from the oil and hold it over the pan, allowing the excess fat to drain.
7. Transfer the chicken to a pan or a plate lined with absorbent paper. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper.
8. Place fried chicken in the oven at 250F to keep it warm and crispy or ideally under a heat lamp if not use right away.

Recipe substitutions

This crispy fried chicken can be used in so many other recipes and not limited to this crispy chicken Pho burger.

• Replace the spiced hoisin sauce and Asian herbs with mayo spread and lettuce for a regular fried chicken sandwich.
• Mirin can be swapped out for water.
• Milk, heavy cream and a squeeze of fresh lemon/lime juice are a perfect substitution for buttermilk.

Related recipes

1. Sour cream batter crispy Cajun fried chicken and waffles
2. The famous Chinese take out General Tso's chicken
3. Want more healthy option? I got you cover with this gluten free chicken wings
4. Double dredge already. How about quadruple the batter to maintain that crispiness with this amazing Bonchon style crispy chicken wings
5. Last but not least definitely try this Cajun grilled chicken avocado sandwich

Did you make this recipe? If so please leave a rating and let me know how it went in the comment section. Also, don't forget to tag me #cookmorphosis @cookmorphosis on social media.