Dave's Hot Chicken Loaded Fries Recipe

Dave's Hot Chicken Top-Loaded Fries are seasoned crinkle-cut fries under cheese sauce, pickles, kale slaw, hot chicken bites and Dave's sauce. This copy seasons 24 ounces of fries with salt, paprika, garlic, onion and a little cayenne, fries a pound of buttermilk-marinated chicken at 350°F, tosses it in a cayenne paste and layers the six parts in that order. It serves four.

What Dave's Top-Loaded Fries are

Dave's Hot Chicken launched Top-Loaded Fries on 12 December 2024 at all its locations, in small, regular and large. The company's description gives the layers in order: its fries, then cheese sauce, pickles and kale slaw, then Dave's Bites and a drizzle of Dave's sauce. The chicken comes in any of the chain's seven spice levels.

Dave's nutrition chart lists the small at 700 calories, the regular at 1,390 and the large at 1,630. This recipe is a reconstruction from the published description and the allergen sheet, not Dave's formula, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Dave's Hot Chicken.

Recipe

Dave's Hot Chicken Top-Loaded Fries

A reconstruction of Dave's Hot Chicken Top-Loaded Fries — seasoned crinkle-cut fries, cheese sauce, pickles, kale slaw, cayenne-coated chicken bites and a chipotle mayonnaise sauce. Four servings.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

30 min

Cook

30 min

Total

1 hr 30 min

Serves

4

Cuisine

American

Ingredients

• For the fries and their seasoning:
• 24 ounces frozen crinkle-cut fries
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• For the chicken bites:
• 1 pound chicken tenders, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 4 cups vegetable oil, for deep-frying
• For the hot spice:
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• For the kale slaw:
• 2 cups finely shredded curly kale
• 1 cup finely shredded green cabbage
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• For the sauce:
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• To finish:
• 3/4 cup nacho cheese sauce, warmed
• 1/2 cup dill pickle chips

Instructions

1. Stir the buttermilk, 1 tablespoon of mustard and 1 teaspoon of the salt together in a bowl, add the chicken and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. Toss the kale and cabbage with 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise, the vinegar, 1 teaspoon of mustard, the sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Refrigerate the slaw.
3. Stir 1/4 cup of mayonnaise, the sour cream, 1 teaspoon of mustard, the honey, chipotle powder and 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder together for the sauce.
4. Bake or air-fry the fries as the package directs, until crisp. Mix the fine salt, 1 teaspoon of paprika, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, the onion powder, parsley, black pepper and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne, and toss the hot fries with it.
5. Heat the oil in a deep, heavy pot to 350°F. Mix the flour with 1 teaspoon of garlic powder and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Lift the chicken out of the buttermilk, press it into the flour on all sides and fry it in two batches for 4 to 5 minutes, until golden and 165°F inside. Drain on a rack.
6. Stir the tablespoon of cayenne, the brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of paprika, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a heatproof bowl. Carefully ladle in 3 tablespoons of the hot frying oil, stir to a paste and toss the fried chicken in it.
7. Pile the fries on a platter. Spoon the warm cheese sauce over them, scatter the pickles and the slaw on top, add the chicken and drizzle with the sauce. Serve at once.

What seasoning is on Dave's Hot Chicken fries?

Dave's does not publish it. Three things are on record. The company calls its fries crispy and seasoned. Its allergen sheet, revised in June 2026, marks none of the nine major allergens and no mustard for them. And the nutrition chart gives a 170-gram serving 1,200 milligrams of sodium, which is about three grams of salt. Whatever else is in the shaker, most of it is salt.

For the rest there is only description. Tasting Table's reviewer calls the fries crinkle-cut and the dusting a little herby and a little spicy. The blend in the card follows that: salt, paprika, garlic and onion powder, parsley, black pepper and a little cayenne. It is an approximation, not the chain's blend.

The slaw, the sauce and the bites, by the allergen sheet

The same sheet narrows down three more parts of the dish.

Part	Allergens marked	What a copy can take from that
Kale slaw	egg, mustard	a mayonnaise and mustard dressing, without dairy
Dave's sauce	egg, milk, mustard	a mayonnaise base with mustard and something from milk
Dave's Bites	milk, mustard, wheat	a dairy marinade and a flour coating, without egg
Spice rubs	none	dry spices

Wikipedia describes Dave's sauce as based on chipotle mayonnaise, which is why the sauce in the card has chipotle powder in it.

The nutrition chart adds one detail about the heat. Ten Bites weigh 299 grams at the two mildest levels and 313 grams from Mild upward, with 10 grams more fat. The heat is carried in oil, as in Nashville hot chicken, where the spice goes on as a paste after frying. The card does the same with three tablespoons of the frying oil.

Dave's cheese fries without the chicken

Dave's also sells Cheese Fries: the seasoned fries with cheese sauce and nothing else. For those, make the first block of the card and warm the cheese sauce. A jar of nacho cheese sauce works; so does the nacho cheese sauce on this site, made from milk and cheddar.

Heat levels

The paste in the card, with one tablespoon of cayenne for a pound of chicken, is a medium heat.

• No heat: leave out the cayenne and use a tablespoon of paprika in its place.
• Mild: one teaspoon of cayenne and two teaspoons of paprika.
• Hotter: two tablespoons of cayenne. Beyond that the paste turns bitter before it gets hotter; a hotter chili powder, such as habanero, does more than a larger amount.

Shortcuts and what keeps

Frozen breaded chicken bites, baked until crisp and tossed in the paste with three tablespoons of hot vegetable oil, replace the frying. The Popeyes-style chicken nuggets on this site are another base for the bites.

The slaw and the sauce keep for two days in the refrigerator. The assembled fries do not keep: the cheese sauce softens them within minutes. To drink with them, there is the Dr Pepper shake.