Fried vs deep fried

Deep frying is a kind of frying. Thus all deep-fried foods are fried, but not all fried foods are deep-fried. Frying that isn't deep frying is sometimes called shallow frying, but more commonly called pan frying. You might also say something is griddle-cooked if it was fried on a griddle.

Pan fried.

As someone who isn’t much of a chef, I couldn’t tell you for sure because in a lot of situations they’re the same thing to common people. I think the best way to know would be to familiarize yourself with how a dish is commonly prepared. That’s how I know

Not always, but often, things that are deep fried have batter/breading on the outside.

Deep frying is just one of several types of frying. There's pan fry, shallow fry, stir fry, sauteing, air fry, vacuum fry.

As a native English speaker and a cook, I can say with confidence that “fried chicken “ can be made without deep frying it. Generally speaking, if something is described as “fried” I would not assume “deep fried” - the egg example is a good one. But if I wanted to avoid any confusion, I would say “shallow fried” or “pan fried” if I didn’t want someone to think I deep fried it.

I would normally assume "fried" by itself to mean pan-fried. Chicken is probably the only food where I would feel the need to specify "pan-fried", as the term"fried chicken" is synonymous with the deep-fried variety.

\-eggs are special; almost no other foods typically called "fried X" suggest "briefly cooked in a hot pan in a small amount of oil or butter." The only other example I can think of is "fried rice" which, interestingly, also involves eggs. \-"fried" generally means "cooked in oil at high temperature," but beyond this there's not much we can reliably generalize. it does seem to mean "battered" more often than not, but this is far from a "rule." fried chicken is battered and deep fried. so are fried green tomatoes. fried plantains are typically deep fried but not battered; fried bananas are typically deep fried AND battered. \-agree with others that the chicken you describe would be called "pan-fried" or "sautéed"

"Lightly fried" would probably be the best way of communicating what you want without needing to use a technical culinary term

99.9% of the time fried means deep fried

In cooking, the word "fry" means to cook with oil, usually in a pan. "Deep fried" means to cook in a pot full of oil.

You can use pan fried or shallow fried to describe that.