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Blissfully Crunchy Hot Honey Chicken

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Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Have you noticed that hot honey is suddenly everywhere? It's on your ricotta toast, in your potato chips and ice cream, even in your espresso martinis. Julia Moskin wrote about how this syrupy condiment went from a drizzle on your pizza to a cultural deluge, hitting the most-searched lists right next to "chili crisp," "pumpkin spice," and "polycule."

I'm here for it. I love a sweet and spicy mash-up — and I'm guessing Farideh Sadeghin does, too. Her new recipe for hot honey chicken produces thin and blissfully crunchy cutlets, made from pounded chicken breasts aggressively seasoned with garlic and onion powders. They're then coated in crushed cornflakes, which form a shaggy golden crust after baking. A little homemade hot honey swirled on top is the decisive flourish. Substitute store-bought if you have it on hand; it's all good. If you're lucky enough to find yourself with leftovers, they make the best sandwiches slicked with mayo and layered on a soft, toasted bun with some crunchy romaine.

Coles Eat Well Chicken Carbonara Review

This overall score is made up of sensory and preparation attributes (50%) and nutrition (50%). Sensory and preparation attributes include flavour (30%), quality (20%), texture (15%), appearance (10%), overall perception (10%), ease of preparation (10%) and smell (5%). The nutrition score is entirely derived from the meal's Health Star Rating, which is calculated from the label and details in the nutrition information panel and converted to a percentage. Weightings are in brackets.

Little Caesars Used To Sell Buckets Of Spaghetti And We Want Them Back

Remember that time when you could buy buckets of spaghetti at Little Caesars? Yeah, me neither. The family-sized portions of pasta and sauce came and went at the pizza chain so fast that if you blinked, you probably missed it. Back in 1993, the company most noted for slinging "Pizza! Pizza!" toyed around with offering pasta. Available in small, medium, and "Big! Big!" buckets, each order had plain spaghetti noodles, sauce in a separate compartment, and breadsticks, all tucked away in a resealable plastic pail.

Once you brought the bucket home, instructions were to portion out the noodles and top with sauce. It was a novel idea: dinner for the family in a portable tote that could double as a Halloween candy vessel. While many surely found the idea endearing and fun, it wasn't enough to compete with the company's signature pizza. By 1994, spaghetti buckets were off the menu, and they haven't returned to Little Caesars since. The word is that the spaghetti was expensive and inconvenient for franchisees to make, especially when it wasn't even that popular with customers. However, I have little doubt that, should the company bring the concept back, people would flock to get their hands on the buckets, even if just for sheer nostalgia or curiosity. Until then, you could always try to get your hands on one of the original buckets on eBay and fill it with your own noodles and sauce.

Read more: The Surprising Way Costco Slices Up Its Pizza To Uniform Perfection

Playing With Food

Little Caesars Big Bucket of spaghetti from 1990s - DoctorBadVibes/YouTube

Around the same time as its foray into pasta, Little Caesars was also making things interesting by playing around with different types of pizza crust and debuted a french-fry crust pizza, but, like the spaghetti bucket, it was short-lived, and hasn't made an appearance since the mid-1990s. There is, though, currently a Stuffed Crazy Crust on the menu; the mozzarella-filled crust is brushed with a garlic butter spread and sprinkled with parmesan cheese before it's baked. The chain's super-popular pretzel crust pizza was developed in 2014 and quickly became a hit. It reappeared on the menu in 2023 after a long stint when it disappeared from Little Caesars' offerings.

Aside from Crazy Bread (the chain's signature breadsticks), wings, and a couple of dessert options, Little Caesars offers pizza and not much else, leading us to believe that the company has recognized what it does best: classic pizza. Untraditional pizza options have come and gone from the chain as well. Over the years, Little Caesars introduced a 24-slice Big! Big! Pizza, pizza by the foot, and even a football-shaped pie, all three of which have joined its spaghetti buckets in the realm of memory, much like most of KFC's all-you-can-eat buffet locations.

Go Elsewhere For Pasta, But Little Caesars Has Conquered The Pizza Game

Box of Little Caesars Hot N Ready Pizza - Debbie Ann Powell/Shutterstock

If it's pizza and pasta you want, and you don't want to make multiple stops, Domino's might be your best bet. The nationwide chain is known for its pizza, but it has been fairly successful with its pasta offerings as well. Granted, Domino's pasta doesn't come in buckets, but in aluminum trays, which is a little less bizarre than a plastic bucket. Domino's doesn't have a spaghetti offering; it serves penne pasta with sauces and topping combinations like chicken carbonara and Italian sausage marinara.  You can also build your own pasta.

If time is your main priority, you have to hand it to Little Caesars for offering what is arguably the quickest option for grab-and-go meals in the fast food pizza space. The company's Hot-N-Ready program began in 2004 and is still going strong. Locations have pizzas hot and ready to go for customers to purchase on demand; no online ordering, customizing, or waiting. And they're all in boxes, not buckets.

Read the original article on The Takeout

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