What Are KFC’s 11 Herbs and Spices?
A handwritten list turned up in 2016 on the back of a will, and a newspaper printed it. KFC says it is not the recipe. The real one sits in a vault behind two feet of concrete. Here is the whole story.
This is one of the most protected trade secrets in the food industry, and the story of how it nearly leaked is better than the list itself.
The 2016 list
A Chicago Tribune reporter was in Corbin, Kentucky working on a travel piece about the town where Sanders began. He met Joe Ledington, a nephew of the Colonel by marriage, whose aunt Claudia Ledington was Sanders’ second wife.
Ledington produced a family scrapbook. Written on the back of Claudia’s last will and testament was a handwritten list of eleven spices, with measurements, to be mixed into two cups of white flour.
The eleven, as published, were:
| The list as printed | Type |
|---|---|
| Salt | Seasoning |
| Celery salt | Seasoning |
| Garlic salt | Seasoning |
| Black pepper | Pepper |
| White pepper | Pepper |
| Paprika | Pepper, mild |
| Dried mustard | Spice |
| Ground ginger | Spice |
| Thyme | Herb |
| Basil | Herb |
| Oregano | Herb |
Ledington singled out one of them as the thing that makes it work. White pepper, he said, was the ingredient nobody thought to use at the time and the one that gives the coating its particular heat.
What KFC said
The company did not confirm it and did not really engage with it either.
A spokesperson said that many people have made these claims over the years and no one has been accurate, and this one is not either. Ledington himself shifted his position after the story ran, at one point saying he could not be certain it was the original.
So the honest position is that the list is plausible, partially corroborated by taste tests that reporters ran at the time, and officially denied. It is not confirmed and it is unlikely ever to be.
How the real recipe is actually protected
The security around it is not marketing puff. KFC has described the arrangement publicly.
The original 1940 handwritten recipe is kept at company headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, in a digital safe encased in two feet of concrete and watched around the clock by video and motion detection.
Only a very small number of executives know the full formula, and they are bound by confidentiality agreements.
Two separate suppliers each blend half of the mix. Neither company holds the complete list, and a third party combines the halves. That is the part that actually matters, because it means no single supplier could leak it even if it wanted to.
When the recipe was moved during a security upgrade, it traveled under armed guard.
Why it stays secret when the chicken is everywhere
A reasonable question: the product is sold in tens of thousands of restaurants, so why can nobody just analyze it?
Partly they can. Laboratory analysis can identify what compounds are present, and plenty of people have produced close approximations. What analysis struggles with is proportions, and with a blend of eleven ingredients the ratios matter more than the list.
The other half of the answer is that the recipe is not the whole product. Pressure frying is as important as the seasoning. Sanders adapted a commercial pressure cooker to fry in, which cooks chicken far faster than an open fryer and keeps it moist. A home cook with the exact spice list and an ordinary pan still will not reproduce it.
The difference between the two coating styles the chain sells is covered on the KFC menu.
Should you try the list at home?
By all means, and plenty of people have. Reporters who cooked from the 2016 note said the result was recognizably close, particularly once they got the white pepper level right.
Two things to expect. Without a pressure fryer the texture will not match. And the published measurements are heavily weighted toward paprika and white pepper, far more than a home cook would normally use, so it will taste wrong if you scale it by instinct rather than following it.
Whether it is the actual recipe, nobody outside a very small group in Louisville can say.
Related Questions
What are KFC’s 11 herbs and spices?
KFC has never confirmed them. A handwritten list published by the Chicago Tribune in 2016 named salt, celery salt, garlic salt, black pepper, white pepper, paprika, dried mustard, ground ginger, thyme, basil and oregano, mixed into two cups of white flour. KFC responded that many people have made such claims and none has been accurate, including that one.
Where did the 2016 KFC recipe list come from?
A Chicago Tribune reporter working on a travel story about Corbin, Kentucky was shown a family scrapbook by Joe Ledington, a nephew of Colonel Sanders by marriage. Written on the back of the last will and testament of Sanders’ second wife, Claudia Ledington, was a handwritten list of eleven spices with measurements.
Is the leaked KFC recipe real?
Unconfirmed and officially denied. KFC said no claim over the years has been accurate and that this one was not either, and Joe Ledington later said he could not be certain it was the original. Reporters who cooked from it found the result close, so it is plausible rather than proven.
Where is the real KFC recipe kept?
At company headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, in a digital safe encased in two feet of concrete and monitored around the clock by video and motion detection. Only a small number of executives know the full formula, and when it was moved during a security upgrade it traveled under armed guard.
How does KFC stop suppliers leaking the recipe?
By splitting it. Two separate suppliers each blend one half of the spice mix, so neither holds the complete list, and a third party combines the halves. That structure means no single supplier could disclose the full formula even if it chose to, which is a stronger protection than confidentiality agreements alone.
Why can’t the recipe just be analyzed in a lab?
To an extent it can, and analysis can identify which compounds are present. What is much harder to pin down is the proportions, and with eleven ingredients the ratios matter more than the list. Pressure frying is also a large part of the result, so knowing the spices alone does not reproduce the chicken.
What is the key ingredient in KFC chicken?
Joe Ledington pointed to white pepper as the ingredient that makes it work. It was uncommon in American home cooking in 1940 and relatively expensive, it gives a sharper heat than black pepper, and it vanishes into a pale coating instead of showing as visible flecks, which makes it hard to identify by taste or by sight.
More on KFC
About this guide. USA Food Menu is an independent reference site and is not affiliated with KFC or Yum! Brands. The 2016 list is reproduced as it was published in the press and is not confirmed by KFC, which has denied it. Nothing on this page should be taken as the company’s recipe. Current prices and calories are on the KFC menu.
More Restaurant Guides
Who Owns In-N-Out Burger?
Lynsi Snyder, the granddaughter of founders Harry and Esther Snyder. She is the company’s president and has been its sole owner since 2017. In-N-Out has never…
Who Owns Five Guys?
The Murrell family. Jerry and Janie Murrell started Five Guys with their sons in 1986, and the family still owns and runs it. It is a private company that grows…
Who Owns Chili’s?
Brinker International, a Dallas based public company that also owns Maggiano’s Little Italy. Chili’s started as a single burger joint in Dallas in 1975 and has…