You should visit the Popeye's in Detroit. You place your order, sometimes you get a bag full of food you didn't order and appreciate the generosity. Other times the staff takes a 30min weed break before they get to serving you. It's a special place.
Take one chicken breast, sliced about an inch thick and then pounded to half that. Marinate the pieces in pickle brine for about a day, then dry, bread, and fry them.
Just as good as Chik fil a and you don’t have to even leave the house. And one chicken breast can make 5-6 patties
For breading I do 1 cup flour, ½ cup cornstarch, 1 tsp baking soda, seasonings. For my wetter I use 1 egg white, 1 tsp water, whisked. Bread (paper bag is what I shake it in), then dip in wetter, then bread again, and fry asap. The water in the wetter activates the baking soda slowly (faster in the fryer), but you want to fry it before it totally reacts (this is what introduces the bubbles in the batter that gives the flour mix its volume).
I created this starting at a popeyes copycat recipe and expanded upon it, to create a solid generic that I work off of. For seasonings, I'll simply use a Cajun seasoning mix and give it a few shakes.
I'm pretty sure there chicken is not actually pickle brined. I can't stand the taste of pickles and I order every sandwich without them. I can't eat the Popeyes chicken sandwich because I can still taste the pickles they were brined with, but I don't get a hint of pickles from chickfila's sandwiches.
There's no way Chick-fil-A does it. I got a few bites into the Popeye's sandwich and then realized they weird, off putting flavor was a pickle brine. I order all chicken sandwiches plain, since I have a really sensitive tongue and can't stand the taste of pickles. The only time there was a hint of pickle flavor in a Chick-fil-A sandwich is if the person who bagged the sandwich had pickle juice on their gloves when they grabbed the patty.
I think they just salt brine their chicken and the common misconception that they pickle brine comes from the fact that pickles are a vile vegetable whose juice soaks deep into whatever they touch and most people order them with pickles.
Far better than CFA’s. I find Popeye’s chicken sandwich to have far better crisp breading and better meat. CFA can get more orders out than Popeye’s in the same amount of time but quality is better than quantity