915 Spice Kitchen Boulevard, Building B, Memphis, TN 38103
Monday–Friday: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
What you'll cook
This page is the plate-by-plate preview of the flagship course. Every dish below is something you build yourself in the lessons, with the same frying technique, the same seasoned coating, and the same heat ladder that runs from mild through Reaper. Look through it the way you would look through a menu before you sit down.
The four formats
Pick a row to see how the format changes as the spice climbs. The technique stays the same; the sauce and the coating build change.
The anchor dish
Tenders are the first thing you cook in the course and the dish you return to when you want to check your technique. The lesson walks the whole chain: brining the strips so they stay juicy past the fryer, building a seasoned dredge that clings instead of falling off in the oil, holding the temperature steady so the crust sets before the meat overcooks, and tossing the finished tenders in the sauce while they are still hot enough to take it.
You also learn the part most home cooks skip — the resting minute. A tender straight out of the oil keeps cooking on the rack, and the course shows you the timing window where the crust is at its crispest and the inside is still pink-free and juicy. That single habit is what separates a daves hot chicken tender from a decent fried strip.
Three formats, one tray
Sliders and wings are the two dishes people order first in a Nashville hot chicken shop. The course shows you how to build each one so the crust survives the sauce.
You learn the slider build from the bottom up: a sweet brioche bun toasted cut-side down in a dry pan, a butterflied tender dredged and fried to order, a spoon of comeback sauce spread on both halves, and a small stack of dill pickles for acid and crunch. The lesson covers the ratio that keeps the sandwich from going soggy on the plate — bun, sauce, pickle, then chicken — so the crust stays crisp from the kitchen to the table.
Pairs with: comeback sauce, honey drizzle
Wings get the double-fry treatment. The first fry cooks the meat through at a lower temperature; the second fry, hotter and shorter, is what builds the shell that holds sauce without turning soft. Between the two fries the wings rest on a rack instead of a paper towel, so the underside stays crisp. Then you bloom the spice in a small pan of hot oil and toss the wings in it the moment they come out of the second fry.
Pairs with: dill ranch, celery and herb salad
Sauces and sides
Sauce is where the heat ladder actually lives. The course builds four of them from the same base: a spiced frying oil, a spoon of the coating blend, and a small amount of something sweet to round the edge. Change the chili and the ratio and the same base becomes the mild toss, the medium, the hot, or the Reaper version. You make each one in the lesson and taste them side by side, so you learn the ladder by mouth and not by a chart.
Every sauce is paired with a cooling side that earns its place on the tray — kale slaw with a vinegar dressing, dill ranch, quick pickles, and a soft milk bun. Those sides are not decoration. They are what makes a Reaper tender something you can eat more than one of, and the course treats them as part of the recipe instead of an afterthought.
Pick your finish
The dish you cook first depends on how much heat you actually want on the plate. Choose the level you want to start at.
Mild
Tenders with the spice cut back, finished with a honey drizzle.
Good first cook. You learn the fry and the dredge without chasing heat at the same time.
Medium
Sliders with a full spoon of comeback sauce and extra pickle.
Where most people stop. The build is more forgiving than wings because the bun cools the bite.
Hot
Double-fried wings tossed in the spiced oil while still hot.
The sauce goes on in the pan, not on the plate. Timing is the whole lesson here.
Extra hot
A mixed tray of tenders and wings under one sauce.
You plate for a group here, so the cooling sides matter as much as the chicken.
Reaper
Tenders, sliders and wings on one platter with every cooling side.
The full spread. Slaw, pickle and milk bun all sit on the tray before the first bite.
Your call
Start mild, finish at the level you actually enjoy.
The course is the same either way. The heat level is a setting you change in the sauce, not a different course.
The dish list is not a menu you order from. It is the order you cook in. You start with a single tender and a single fry, learn what the oil is telling you, and then work forward: dredge, first fry, rest, sauce, plate. By the time you reach sliders and wings you already have the habits that keep a crust crisp and a tender juicy, so the new dishes are about assembly and timing instead of new technique.
The last lesson puts it together as one tray — tenders, sliders and wings cooked in the same session, with the sauces and sides lined up beside them. That is the picture this page is showing you. Not a restaurant's output, but a table you set yourself, on a weeknight, with the heat dialed to whatever level you want that day.
No. A heavy pot with a few inches of oil works for every dish on this page. The course covers how to hold the temperature steady on a stovetop, how to tell when the oil is ready without a thermometer, and how to fry in small batches so the temperature does not drop when the chicken goes in.
You can, but the course suggests starting mild and moving up. The heat is a setting in the sauce, not a separate technique, so it makes sense to learn the fry and the coating first and add spice once the crust is working. That way you know whether a problem is the heat or the technique.
The spiced tossing sauce is best used the day you make it, because it is built on hot oil and loses its edge as it sits. The cold sauces — comeback, dill ranch — keep in the fridge for several days and get better after a few hours as the flavors settle. The course notes which is which on every recipe.
Assemble them close to serving. The bun takes on moisture from the sauce and the hot chicken, and a slider built twenty minutes early will lose the crunch that makes it worth eating. If you are cooking for a group, fry and hold the tenders on a rack in a warm oven, then build the sliders in the last few minutes before the table sits down.
As recipes. Kale slaw, dill ranch, quick pickles and the milk bun each get their own walkthrough, because the cooling side is doing real work on a hot plate. Skip them and the chicken is harder to eat; build them properly and the whole tray balances.
