I don't use oil. I use lard and/or bacon grease. And not that much. Maybe 1/3 of an inch in the bottom of the pan? And I use most of those drippings up making the gravy.

Where there's a will, there's a way.... I haven't had vegetable oil or shortening in the house for years and years.

1. You could oven-fry it.
2. Use butter/margarine instead of oil.
3. Trade someone something for the oil needed, or for the remainder of the oil.
4. Believe it or not, you can "fry" chicken with the skin on (NO dredging) without using fat/oil at all. There's more than enough fat on the chicken already - it's ready to turn when it lets loose of the pan, so don't hurry to turn it.
5. You might use a non-stick fry pan with some Pam (or other vegetable spray) sprayed on the pan or on all sides of the chicken.

-Grainlady
------------------------

OVEN-FRIED CHICKEN
(source: Better Homes and Gardens New Dieter's Cook Book)

2 to 2-1/2 pounds meaty chicken pieces (breasts, thighs, and drumsticks), skinned
1/4 c. cornflake crumbs
1 T. snipped fresh parsley
1/3 c. plain low-fat yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
2 t. Worcestershire sauce or white wine Worcestershire sauce
Dash ground red pepper

Rinse chicken; pat dry. Place on a rack in a shallow baking pan; set aside.

In a small mixing bowl combine cornflake crumbs and parsley; set aside.

In another small mixing bowl combine yogurt, glarlic, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper

Brush chicken with yogurt mixture, then sprinkle with crumb mixture.

Bake, uncovered, in a 375°F oven for 45 to 55 minutes or till chicken is tender and no longer pink.

Makes 6 servings

Nutrition: 168 calories, 23g protein, 4g carb., 6g fat, 68mg cholesterol, 137 mg sodium, 224 mg potassium.

I'm like you, I like my chicken deep fried. I think it turns out best that way. - I won't even tell you what I do with the oil because I'm afraid of what people will say, lol. Put it this way, I'm still alive and kicking.

But, you can fry in a little bit of oil so that it just comes half way up the sides of the chicken. Get it brown on one side and turn, then cover. You can also fry in very little oil on all sides and finish in the oven. Both ways turn out good, just not AS good as a deep fry, imho.

Also, I buy Peanut Oil at Walmart. It's 8.00 for a HUGE jug of it - 2 or 3 gallons. I keep it in the fridge after I open it so it doesn't spoil on me before I use it all up. 8.00 for all that oil doesn't hurt my spending conscience when I pitch the used oil out. And it lasts for quite a while refrigerated. I've heard, but not experienced, that it can go bad if kept in your cupboard after opening.

If you save glass jars, then use one of them like this:

Fry your chicken in enough oil so the chicken floats just a little off the bottom of whatever deep sided pot you use.

Turn off heat.

Enjoy your chicken.

Strain the COOLED oil through a coffee filter lined sieve into empty jar.

Close jar and store in fridge until next time you want to fry chicken.

I do this all the time and can reuse the oil 4-5 times with good results.

If you season the dredging flour with garlic and onion powder, a little of the flavor will remain in the oil: which is a good thing. (:

Cream

Ditto on filtering the used oil and refrigerating.

I save oil that I've fried potatoes in and will use it a few more times. But I only use oil that I fry meat/chicken/fish in once and then dispose of it.

Ann

I'm with Cream & Julie. We have one of those plastic filter cones that sits on top of a coffee mug if you want only a cup or two of coffee. My husband is very good about pouring the cooled oil through a coffee filter and letting it drain for the next use. The filter gets out all the bits that can make oil taste burnt the next time you heat it up.

The only thing is that if you fry fish, remember to mark the oil "fish only" in your fridge...chicken doesn't benefit from being fried in fishy oil.

If you deep fat fry with oil, simply strain it REALLY well and then freeze it.

Works great.

Am I the only one extremely curious about what trsinc does with leftover oil?

lol, don't know where you're going with that one, but I strain and refrigerate just like some here. Sorry to disappoint. I read the harvest forum a lot and safety is a big deal over there - as it should be - so I was hesitant to suggest it.

I understand trsinc. I lurk sometimes at the Harvest forum too but I hardly ever post because they're always jumping all over each other over there for something casually said. It's not like they can come through your computer screen and wring your neck, although a couple of them sound like they would if they could, but it gets very annoying to read after awhile.

I have an old stove-top coffee pot that has a basket in it. I pour my oil through that and then discard whatever gets caught in the basket. If it's not very much or I'm going to use it very soon, I leave the oil in the coffee pot. If longer, I will pour it in a jar and refrigerate. My mother used pretty much the same process, except she left the oil in the pot all the time, adding to it as time went by, washing the pot out only when it actually became empty. I wouldn't recommend that to anyone, and probably someone will know that it's harmful to do that, but we all grew up healthy and what she cooked always tasted good.

For me, it depends on how strongly seasoned food is that is being deep-fried, what I do with the oil. If I deep-fry potatoes, I will almost always re-use that in recipes that call for oil, a little here, a little there. I don't like potatoes to have off flavors so I use fresh each time. I don't deep-fry chicken, but if I did I think I'd store it in the fridge for the next time, too.

You could use the oil to drive down the block...

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooking oil car

I really don't think it takes that much oil...my mother made wonderful fried chicken that was always requested at various get togethers and thirty years later...Cook's Illustrated decide the same cooking method is "best" for frying chicken.
She poured about an inch of Wesson vegetable oil in an electric skillet set at 350 and cooked floured skin-on chicken in it. The Cook's article pointed out that having some of the chicken NOT submerged (deep fat) in oil allowed excess moisture to evaporate and create a crispy, non greasy piece of moist meat.

I think it took about half a jug of oil so at generic brand prices that might be a dollar? She did save the oil but even if you threw it out it's really not a big deal.
For years I took over the family cooking and had to do this ( I got 10 dollars a week allowance for doing all the cooking!- but now, I realize I got an education with a capital E)
Anyway, make the fried chicken. Don't worry about the extra oil. Save it if you want, but if it goes bad or you never use it, that's perfectly ok.

I use leftover oil to make popcorn. I use quite a bit of oil when I make popcorn - about 1/3 to 1/2 as much oil as popcorn - and this makes sure that every kernel pops and it never burns. If the oil is flavored, the popcorn is even better.

Lars

My son does a lot of frying in a turkey fryer...turkeys, potatoes, fish etc...and he has some compound he adds to the oil while it's still warm, and lots of gunk falls to the bottom of the pot, then he syphons that out with a thingey that has a bulb pump...discards that and pours the rest back into the bottle to reuse.
I think he gets it about 5 turkeys cooked in a batch of oil before he discards it.
Linda C

I deep fry maybe twice a month. I strain the oil into a container with a lid and refrigerate it between uses. I'll use the same oil for about three months. When it gets dark or cloudy,I pour it in a metal can and throw it away.