Secret Go-To Fried Calamari Method + 3 Sauces

Learn the secrets that make my Calamari a little bit better than everyone else’s. Discover how to prepare and cook calamari perfectly, ensuring it’s crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Plus, I’ll share two delicious dipping sauces—my special cocktail sauce and a creamy cashew lemon garlic sauce—to elevate your calamari experience.

00:00 Intro
00:24 Red cocktail sauce
01:56 White cocktail sauce recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUIBfHS9j8A
02:09 Cashew sauce
03:39 Calamari (avocado oil at 375°F)
05:00 Fryer important tips
05:48 Oil temp important notes
06:07 Frying the Calamari
06:49 Seasoning and plating the Calamari
07:18 Taste test
08:35 Put the chicken nugget down

_*RECIPES*_

*Red Cocktail Sauce*
_Yield: 2 cups, lasts up to 3 weeks in refrigerator_

INGREDIENTS
12 oz of your favorite chili sauce
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp fresh garlic, minced
2 tbsp prepared horseradish (not horseradish sauce)
1 tbsp capers, chopped
½ tbsp fresh herbs (dill, cilantro, Italian parsley), finely chopped
1 green onion, thinly sliced
A touch of salt
½ tsp homemade hot sauce (adjust to taste) https://youtube.com/shorts/4ZvAG2z8phY
Honey or maple syrup (optional for sweetness, no more than 1 tbsp)
1 oz lemon juice

*Cashew Lemon Garlic Sauce*

INGREDIENTS
2 cups raw unsalted unroasted cashews, soaked overnight (6 hrs minimum)
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup water
2 tsp salt
3 oz garlic (almost a half cup), minced
1 tsp hot sauce https://youtube.com/shorts/4ZvAG2z8phY

*Fried Calamari*

INGREDIENTS
Calamari bodies and tentacles, skinned
Buttermilk for marinating calamari
Self-rising flour
Avocado oil or light olive oil for frying

INSTRUCTIONS

Prep Calamari:
Cut calamari bodies into slices about ¾ inch thick to retain meatiness.
Separate tentacles if they are large; cut them in half.
Marinate the calamari pieces (bodies and tentacles separately) in buttermilk with a touch of house seasoning for at least an hour.

Frying:
Heat avocado oil or light olive oil to 375°F in a deep fryer.
Drain marinated calamari well, ensuring no excess moisture.
Coat the calamari pieces thoroughly in self-rising flour, shaking off any excess.
Fry the calamari in batches until golden brown and crispy (about 30-45 seconds per batch).
Remove from oil and place in a bowl with house seasoning.

Serve with cocktail sauce, cashew lemon garlic sauce, or Greek yogurt for dipping.

fried calamarie some people don’t like it my dad used to call it Greek shrimp just to get people to try it and they’re “Oh my god it’s so good.” They didn’t know they were eating calamarie so check it out there are a few secrets that make my fried calamari a little bit better than everybody else’s and I’m going to show you those secrets today we’re going to start off with making one of our two sauces and it’s a simple cocktail sauce but it’s got a Chef Greg tweak to it got 12 oz of your favorite chili sauce one teaspoon balsamic vinegar teaspoon of fresh garlic 2 tablespoons of a good horseradish prepared not horseradish sauce you got one tablespoon of capers that we want to chop up remember to keep that knife angled away from you about a half a tablespoon of fresh herbs i’ve got a little dill a little cilantro a little Italian parsley in that mix we just want to break that down even just a little bit more you know it’s okay to chop the herbs like that when you’re using it in a sauce but you don’t want to do that ahead of time because you’re bruising the herbs and then they’ll get all mushy and soggy one green onion your left hand is only holding the food lightly a touch of salt and just a touch of your own homemade hot sauce i just put maybe a half a teaspoon in there if you like it a little spicier add more if you don’t want it spicy don’t add any if you want this to be a little sweeter then add some honey or maple syrup i wouldn’t do more than a tablespoon about an ounce of lemon juice as well and this will make about two cups it lasts about 3 weeks i also made some of the white cocktail sauce that we made a few weeks ago that makes a great dipping sauce whenever we would have fried calamari in Greek Town I’d always eat it with Greek yogurt fried calamari and Greek yogurt is the bomb all right so this cashew sauce I can’t claim that this one’s mine this is my daughter’s she’s been making this for couple years now two cups of raw unsalted unroasted cashews that have been soaked overnight one cup of lemon juice and one cup of water and that’s fresh lemon two teaspoons of salt 3 oz almost a half a cup of garlic and again about a teaspoon of hot sauce you start off slowly [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] you really want this smooth you let this run until it stops blending and what you’re left with is this nice smooth cashew sauce it’s lemony there’s no gluten in it my middle daughter she uses this sauce to dip her vegetables in her falafel patties i mean it’s just a basic great garlic dipping lemony dipping sauce this again these will last for at least 3 weeks in the refrigerator calamari i’ve got avocado oil at 380 i use either avocado oil or light olive oil when you get calamarie most of the time it comes packed skinned and tentacles when you cut it you don’t want to cut it in small rings you want to leave about 3/4 of a of an inch slice you want some meat if you don’t cut the calamari this big it tends to be too bready you know you want calamari and we keep the tentacles separate if they’re very big you can go ahead and cut them in half like this one here is a little bit bigger and we always keep them separate so I had done that ahead of time and these are the calamari bodies i cut these yesterday and I put them in buttermilk with just a touch of my house seasoning and the tentacles are separate as well with a little buttermilk with a touch of my house seasoning now when we fry them we want equal amounts of of both items you know also if you mix these tentacles into the bodies they’ll taint the color of the white calamari now you can use skin on calamari that’s just going to give you a more pronounced squid flavor we drain this good and you know we have a small vessel that we’re working with today so you don’t want to overload your fryer because frying oil doesn’t like three things it doesn’t like salt it doesn’t like water and it doesn’t like temperature and temperature I’m talking like frozen breaded seafood not only is it bringing cold but it’s bringing moisture so you want to put as little moisture and salt into your frying oil as possible because it’ll break it down now when I flour these I I try to open them up and get flour in there okay and you can see why this would take one guy just doing this all night long and that goes into our our strainer now like I said when you fry this you want to do this with a thermometer it’s got to be at least 370 375 okay uh if you go lower than 370 what you’re going to end up is really greasy soggy calamari if you get too high it’s going to brown faster than it’s going to actually cook so we get all this excess flour off okay and then we come over to our frying oil we pour it all in at once and this should take no more than 30 to 45 seconds and the flour that I’m using is self-rising flour it’s got to be self-rising flour it’s got that baking powder in there and it gives you that crispiness we’re almost at like 30 seconds if you go longer than you need to then the calamari is going to start getting tough it’s one of those seafoods that needs to be cooked quickly i go into a bowl a little bit of house seasoning you can do use salt and pepper if you’d like then we put it into a bowl or a plate with paper is that gorgeous or what this is the calamari sauce it’s crunchy it’s light little bit of lemon we don’t season the flour because we don’t want to put the salt in the fryer that’s why we season after we fry it this is that cashew lemon garlic sauce no gluten delicious and then we’ve got the white cocktail sauce we made that one a few weeks ago oh my god make sure that you get this self-rising flour into every nook and cranny make sure you shake it off well because you don’t want any excess flour in your fryer getting it dark this is really easy i know that making having a fryer at home smells up the house but this is special occasion kind of stuff here again 30 seconds 45 at the most that’s a night nice light crust my favorite part is the tentacle in Greek Town when you get this fried calamari they leave the skin on the tube gives you more of a pronounced squid flavor that marinade and buttermilk really tenderizes it well i like going in the bowl and then putting into the the serving pl because that oil doesn’t get in there when you’re pulling it out of the fryer it’s releasing oil and we don’t want that on our calamari that’s why we do it in a bowl took me 30 minutes to put these ingredients together the sauces are quick and easy as you can see you can do it put the chicken nuggets down and make some real food this is delicious you’re going to love it well a little fresh lemon by itself plain shut the front door i’m only doing this because Zach told me to do it okay