This will be a short post because, as it turns out, making buffalo chicken wings is one of the simplest things in the world. As crowd-pleasing recipes go, it really doesn’t get much simpler than this.
My connection to wings goes back nearly 30 years – back to one of the graduate student keg parties I threw with a roommate of mine at Wesleyan University. Oh….and they were definitely called BUFFALO Chicken Wings back then. Not Wings. Not Chicken Wings. They were part of the bar culture in the area around Buffalo, NY – and we got our recipe from another graduate student who had grown up in the Buffalo area. Sweet!
Raw wings were way cheap back then. Outside of restaurants that used them to make stock, they were pretty much discardable chicken parts.
Fast forward 30 years and now wings are available almost everywhere. And even though the edible-meat-per-weight ratio for wings is the smallest of any chicken part, the price for raw wings is high because the joy of Buffalo Chicken Wings has exploded. Now, there are wing specialty franchises dedicated to 50+ types of wings – every flavor combination imaginable. But to my way of thinking, they have taken an amazing bar snack and ruined it.
And back in the day, wings could probably bring-in a huge profit margin for bars. A genius combination of cheap simple ingredients that was unique, tasty, and drove-up beer sales. Now, our raw chicken wings now are at least heftier – with a better edible-meat-per-weight ratio – though now they’re kinda expensive. But Buffalo Chicken Wings are still amazing – even at current elevated costs. And if you want to be a real cheapskate, you can follow the design below with drumsticks (just don’t tell anybody I said that).
You’ll never catch me ordering non-traditional wings when I’m out: teriyaki wings or lemon/pepper wings or boneless-skinless wings or any kind of burn-the-roof-off-your-mouth-double-secret-probation wings. Whatever random servings that have evolved with the word “wings” in their names are, mostly, a far cry from original wings. Buffalo Chicken Wings. Buffalo, NY Chicken Wings! The only Buffalo Chicken Wings that matter. Usually it’s just better to make them at home and know they’re going to be what I want!
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The original Buffalo Chicken Wings are really simple to make, but their simplicity doesn’t mean that it’s not worth making a few observations along the way. For me, there are four fundamentally important things underlying perfect chicken wings:
(1) The chicken wings should be cooked with their skin on so that the skin is as crispy as possible. The wings can either be baked at high temperature or fried (with or without a dusting of flour) – either way, the wings need to be cooked so that the skin has some identifiable texture. The crispy skin is part of the character of the finished chicken wings. The chicken should never be seasoned prior to cooking – proper Buffalo Chicken Wings are coated after they are cooked and all the seasoning comes from the coating. I believe it is easier for a home cook to bake the wings but I have included some notes on frying them at the end of this post.
(2) The sauce for real Buffalo Chicken Wings should only contain two ingredients: Hot Sauce and Butter. Yeah, it’s as simple as that.
(3) The heat and flavor of the wings should be determined by the brand of hot sauce you use to coat the cooked wings. Be sure to choose a hot sauce made from cayenne peppers and vinegar. Tabasco and Frank’s and Texas Pete are all great and popular choices. But since the brand of hot sauce you choose will be providing the dominant peppery flavor for your wings, choose a hot sauce that you know you like. According to wing mythology, the original Buffalo Chicken Wings from the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY were coated in wing sauce made using Frank’s Hot Sauce (and that’s the sauce I prefer).
(4) Buffalo Chicken Wings should be served with blue cheese dressing and spears of celery. That combination is nothing short of brilliant. The crunchy cool of the celery and the tartness of the blue cheese dressing are soothing against the peppery bite of the wings. But over the last 30-some years, many places have started substituting ranch dressing as the preferred accompaniment for wings. And while I’ll never deny anybody their own preferences, I would at least ask any wing lovers out there who have only dunked wings in ranch dressing to give blue cheese a try. The complex flavor of the wings against the blue cheese is remarkable.
But enough with the background. I’ve already made the process sound more complicated than it is.
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Buffalo Chicken Wings
Makes about 20 wings.
Ingredients:
Whole Chicken Wings – 2 1/2 – 3 lbs.
Hot Sauce (like Tabasco or Frank’s or Texas Pete’s) – 1/2 Cup
Butter* – 1/3 Cup
*I believe that the original Buffalo Chicken Wings that we made were coated with a sauce that was equal parts (by volume) of hot sauce and melted butter. I tend to side with the more modern approach to sauce that uses a little bit less butter (by volume). So you’ll be mixing roughly equal parts hot sauce and butter – but preferably with a little less butter than hot sauce. Real Buffalo Hot Wings are messy – and a little more or a little less butter isn’t going to change the messiness but it will change the heat factor of the wings (using less butter makes for spicier wings).
Serve With:
Blue Cheese Dressing & Celery Spears. Many people prefer ranch dressing (which makes me sad).
Directions:
(1) Separate each whole wing into three parts by cutting between the sections at the joint with a heavy, sharp knife. Also cut off any excess chicken fat that is attached to the wing. Discard the fat and the little wing tips (or save them to make chicken stock if that’s something you do).
This is a whole chicken wing.
Use a heavy sharp knife to divide-up each wing. The tip on the left and the excess fat on the right can be discarded or used for stock. That would leave the middle two pieces which are called the wingette and the drumette (i.e. the little wing and the little drumstick). I call both pieces “wings.”
(2) Arrange the trimmed wing pieces on a sheet pan that has been covered in aluminum foil and sprayed with cooking spray.
I started with 2 lb. 14 oz. of whole chicken wings – which gave me 2 lb. of trimmed wings – 20 pieces.
Note – it is important to spray the foil with cooking spray (or to coat it with butter or oil) – the wings may still stick some to the coated foil, but they will form a strong bond with the foil if you don’t use any coating. Some people prefer to bake their wing pieces on a rack (inside of a sheet pan) so that they bake more evenly and so there is less steaming where the chicken touches the pan – if you go this route, be sure to spray the rack with cooking spray!
(3) Bake the wings in a preheated 500°F oven for 20-30 minutes, turning them once about halfway through that time. Cook the wings until they begin to brown and the skin begins to crisp.
If you prefer to fry your wings, have at it. Fry them in oil that is around 375°F until they begin to brown and the skin begins to crisp – more on that below.
(4) After the wings are cooked, allow them to cool a bit while you make the sauce. Measure-out 1/2 cup of your preferred hot sauce into a pyrex measuring cup and add about 1/3 cup of unsalted butter (I use 6 Tbsp. which is a little over 1/3 cup). Microwave this combination at 50% power for 1 minute at a time until the butter is fully melted. Stir the mixture to fully incorporate the butter and the hot sauce.
I prefer the peppery burn of Frank’s RedHot Sauce. That’s just a personal preference.
This is really all there is to the sauce: your preferred hot sauce and a little less butter.
Together, the bright red of the hot sauce and the pale yellow from the butter combine to make the characteristic orange color that is associated with Buffalo Chicken Wings.
(5) Toss the cooked wings in the hot sauce. That’s it. Really….that’s it! Serve the wings with blue cheese dressing and some celery stalks. Go with ranch dressing if you have to, but please consider going with the blue cheese. Don’t insult Buffalo, NY, OK.
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Final Note – Before you embark on a Buffalo Chicken Wing journey, you need to be honest with yourself about how many wings each person will eat. The nearly 3 pounds of wings I started with above gave me 20 wing pieces for my recipe. And that served one person (me). Not everybody will inhale 20 wings. But these original Buffalo Chicken Wings are really amazing so don’t sell their appeal short, OK.
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Frying Chicken Wings
If you want to fry your wings, there’s nothing to overthink about the process – you heat some oil and your fry the wings. Frying chicken wings really isn’t any more difficult than baking them, but there are two significant downsides: it is more time-consuming and there is potential waste of oil.
It takes about 1 1/2 – 2 quarts of oil to fry wings – that oil takes a long time to bring up to temperature. I use a cast iron dutch oven whenever I deep fry food – my old electric stove takes forever to bring the oil up to temperature – I have an induction unit that works better but it still struggles with the task. Larger gas stoves are probably the best for this task.
Shoot for 375°F.
Next, to keep the temperature of the oil from dropping too dramatically, the chicken wings should be fried in batches – no more than 10 at a time (yeah).
When you add your wings to the hot oil, they will sink to the bottom and the oil will bubble furiously as water is expelled from the chicken wing pieces.
After a few minutes, the wings will begin to float to the top and the bubbling will subside.
The temperature of the oil will also drop quite a bit.
Use visual cues to tell when the wing pieces are fully cooked: (1) the bubbling of the oil will have slowed significantly, & (2) the exterior of the wings will begin to brown. Depending on the size of your wing pieces and on the temperature of your oil, it should take at least 10 minutes but less than 15 minutes for them to cook.
Look for the bubbling to slow considerably.
And look for the wing pieces to brown.
When the wings are fully cooked, remove them from the oil and place them on a rack over absorbent paper (keeping them off the paper prevents them from getting soggy).
Keep your fried wings off the paper so the fried skin will stay crisp.
Once the pieces have been removed from the oil, it is important that you allow your oil to heat back up to 375°F before starting your next batch of wings.
Note – Even after frying multiple batches of wings, the oil you are using can be saved for a short time if you filter-out any debris and store the oil in an airtight container. But if you’re not a frequent frier, then the oil might take-on off smells or become rancid if not used soon. I only fry foods once or twice a month so using this much oil to fry wings invariably wastes a ton of oil. Baking wings isn’t as authentic as frying them, but most home kitchens don’t have dedicated deep-fat friers either. Sometimes you have to balance authenticity with practicality.
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