Your Home Is the Sports Bar Now—Make Wings!
You can drag me to the sports bar with the stickiest floor, the rudest fans, and the worst beer selection and I will be happy. Because I LOVE WINGS. My favorite preflight meal is Buffalo Wild Wings. So with the return of Big 10 football this weekend, my home will transform into the sports bar of 2020, better than any other sports bar because it’s just me and my pod and my cat. We have a clean bathroom. And a great beer selection.
Back to the wings. Bon Appétit has many recipes for them. Some are more complicated than others. I’ve been practicing, and I took notes, so that we can figure out which wings YOU should make. Go Blue!
You want to be true to the experience, you purist you
To re-create bar-style Buffalo wings, what you really need to do is deep-fry them in the grease of 1,000 wings past. I don’t do that at home because of the amount of oil required and my general laziness. But if you MUST, this recipe is the truest expression of those wings you so desire. Super-crispy skin, drenched in sauce, an absolutely delicious mess.
BA's Best Buffalo Wings
You want Buffalo wings but don’t want to fry them
Why go to the trouble of deep-frying when the wings get sogged in sauce anyway? When you bake them you can achieve a pretty damn crispy skin and no one will be the wiser once they’re smothered in ranch that’s all over your face and couch cushions. Steam cleaner’s coming next week, don’t worry about it.
NOTE ON THIS RECIPE: Some commenters do NOT like the brown sugar in the Buffalo sauce, which is “untraditional” and “blasphemous” depending on your wing religion. I made them with the sugar and have to agree: not necessary. I want straight buttery Frank’s Red Hot heat.
Basically Buffalo Wings
You want to grill
The weather’s nice and you have one of those outdoor setups with a TV on the patio! This is a nice recipe for the occasion. The soy-honey marinade is easy and lip-smacking, I’ve made these about once a summer since the recipe came out. Plus shishitos! If you want.
Grilled Chicken Wings with Shishito Peppers and Herbs
You want crispy wings but don’t like them “wet”
Sorry, not sure how else to say it. But after some time in the boiler, these peppercorn wings get a texture I’d compare to a salt-and-pepper-flavored kettle chip. The recipe’s also super flexible—play with whatever spices you have around the house, as long as you go HARD on the pepper for those crunchy bits.
Crispy Peppercorn Chicken Wings
You want a sweet, glaze-y wing
Within this recipe there’s a traditional Buffalo sauce and the option of a simple glaze with ginger, honey, garlic, and soy sauce. I hate to mention B Dub’s “Asian Zing” sauce because that name, oof, but these really did remind me of them. (I add sambal.)
Crispy Baked Chicken Wings
You want crispy wings AND leftover chicken fat
Andy Baraghani’s wings have a couple of cool cooking-technique things going on. The wings get covered in spices and a ginger-garlic oil and sit for 30 min-to a full day to season them deeply. THEN you bake them starting from a cold oven, which makes the chicken fat slowly drip off into the pan (which you can save and use later) and leaves you with super-crispy skin. It’s a bit of a process but with restaurant-worthy results. Very Andy.
Crispy Turmeric-and-Pepper-Spiced Chicken Wings
You want “mind-altering” wings
This is a recipe from a Texas restaurant, Hot Joy, know for its crab-fat caramel wings. I haven’t made these because there’s frying involved, but there’s also a fish sauce and crab paste caramel for glazing the wings. So I’m thinking maybe I’ll make THAT and then bake the wings to be more user-friendly. I’ll report back soon.
Crab Fat–Caramel Wings
See you on the sidelines!
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
