Here at the Goon residence, we love the flavor of Buffalo chicken. We love wings, and they’re easy to make, but the high-heat deep-frying and the subsequent cleaning get old. Yesterday I put some chicken breasts in the crockpot with the basic wings sauce- hot pepper sauce, vinegar, and butter- and after 6 hours it was extremely tender and delicious. The only problem was the sauce was very thin and didn’t stick to the meat. I’m having leftovers of it right now in flat noodles and alfredo sauce. It’s pretty good- and has inspired me to look for recipes that are similar. Or maybe I’ll just create my own recipe- something chickeny and hotsaucy and bluecheesey.
So do you have any Buffalo-flavored chicken recipes?
Well, the only key to “Buffalo-style” stuff is the sauce. The way I understand it, it’s supposed to be a roughly 50-50 mix of Crystal(or is it Frank’s?) Hot Sauce and butter.
You could conceivably make something as strange as Buffalo-style steaks, by pan-frying some cube steaks(with batter or some kind of crispy coating), then tossing them in the sauce.
Well, if you’re just looking for easier cleanup, I usually bake my wings (on a rack, so much of the fat drips away). They come out crispy and delicious (not dry, as I used to fear). Then they go in the Franks/butter sauce, get tossed around for a while, and served.
Not exactly a chicken wing recipe but this Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip recipe is a huge hit at my parties. I even have a vegetarian version that I make with vegetarian “chicken” for my veggie friends.
BUFFALO CHICKEN WING DIP
1 package softened Philly cream cheese
2 cups cooked chunked boneless skinless chicken breast (you can used the canned chicken too if you’re in a hurry) chunky bleu cheese dressing Frank’s hot wing sauce
1 package shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Spread cream cheese in bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Mix hot wing sauce with the chicken and pour on top of the cream cheese, spread the chunky bleu cheese dressing over chicken mixture and top with Monterey Jack cheese.
Bake until the cheese is melted and bubbling.
I love Asian flavors, so I once made up this recipe:
Asian Buffalo Wings
Bake or broil the wings. While they are cooking, put into a big bowl a good quantity of thick, syrupy bottled teriyaki sauce. Add to it some Frank’s red hot sauce or sriracha, the amount adjusted according to your heat tolerance. Grate in some fresh ginger and garlic, a squeeze of lime juice and a few squirts of sesame oil. Stir it all to combine, and add the piping hot wings and toss them to coat. Great stuff.
I make this for office potlucks and they are extremely popular.
Once and for all can I say Buffalo’s don’t have wings.
Just so everybody understands, tossing is done after. Cook the wings first, the sauce is mixed in a tupperware bowl with a lid. Throw the wings in and shake like mad.
My little twist is Franks, margarine and a spot of brown sugar. Still makes your scalp sweat but doesn’t ruin your taste buds to other flavors.
Thanks for the dip recipe, TCGM- that’s the kind of thing I was looking for, although I do appreciate the wings recipes, too. Someone at my work makes that dip recipe but without the blue cheese, and it’s very good.
I’ve heard it said before that baking them is good, but I don’t see how they could be as crispy and tasty as frying. I’ll try it this weekend, maybe with the Asian flavor.
Now I’m thinking I’m going to invent a recipe like this (the dip) but for a main dish. Then I’ll put it in a recipe contest and win thousands. Anybody wanna help?
We like to make pulled chicken wing sandwiches, which are like pulled pork BBQ sandwiches, only with grilled and shredded chicken breast tossed with wing sauce. Serve on rolls with blue cheese - I actually like to use crumbled blue cheese instead of the dressing kind, but that works too. These are really great for tailgate parties and things like that.
I personally do not care for shrimp, but other people seem to enjoy shrimp tossed with wing sauce.
I think the other thing about using margarine is that it’s supposed to make the sauce stickier to the chicken, although I will admit that even as a Buffalo native I usually use butter because that’s what I would have in the house.
(I swear I posted this morning, but I guess I failed to hit submit!)
My SO is from the Buffalo area and she was right about Buffalo having the best wings in the entire world. Since we only get there twice a year I offered to try my hand at making her some Buffalo wings as we* always * have Frank’s on hand anyway. She doesn’t think I can make them taste like the wings at home. I think I can. So in the next week or so I’m going to give it a try. Wish me luck, she’s not easy to please when it comes to wings or Italian food.
One question, how long do I bake the wings before tossing them in the sauce?
Stop right there. You’re not going to make them taste like “the wings at home” if you bake them. You have to deep fry those suckers. Alternately, marinating them in Frank’s and grilling them also produces good, if not very different, results.
Wings are easy. Franks + margarine is all you need for the sauce. You can have fun with it if you’d like and add stuff like brown sugar (or a dab of honey), garlic, a dab of mustard, etc., but you cannot go wrong with the classic Franks + margarine/butter. The hard bit is finding wings as big as the ones in Buffalo. They’re enourmous.
I’d go with peanut oil, though it is pricier than, say, canola (which is supposed to be healthier, but buffalo wings are not a healthy food in and of themselves, so, yeah).
Yes, as stated above, peanut oil is pretty much the best, although I use generic ol’ “vegetable oil” with good results, too. The key is to get the oil nice and hot (375 or so), don’t crowd the pot or fryer (the oil temp will otherwise drop too much). I always start with room temp or near room-temp wings. Fry until golden brown, drain, toss with Franks & margerine/butter, and serve immediately.
I agree that you won’t have an exactly like “home” (buffalo) wing if you bake them, deep frying is the way to go for authenticity. However, baking the wings adds a different dimension in texture and flavor that I happen to like. And if you do it right they are just as good as deepfried wings and slightly crispier (I actually prefer a slightly well done deep fried chicken wing and will sometimes request them well done from restaurants that I know deep fry them to a lesser degree than I prefer).
To bake them I generally place the frozen wings well spaced on an alluminum foil covered cookie sheet. Then I follow the directions on the bag, which is usually around 375F for 30 minutes or so (this usually varies from brand to brand and type), except I generally tack on about an extra 10 minutes of cooking time to the recommended baking time to get the crispieness and texture that I like. It is also important that you flip the wings about halfway through the cooking time to get the crispy skin all around. Then I toss them in a bowl of the prepared sauce.
I generally like a very very spicy, slightly sweet sauce. One sauce that I really like and sometimes throw together is a very simple and easy “refrigerator” sauce.
(All of these measurements are approximate)
1/3 cup of a dark smoky sweet BBQ sauce
2-3 tblsp Red El Yucateco Habanero sauce
3 tbsps. of Frank’s or another vinegary red pepper sauce (add enought to bring up the sour to sweet ratio)
1 or 2 cloves of pressed garlic
1 small pickled or fresh hot pepper of your choice finely chopped
Of course, another alternative to my method, which admittedly sometimes dries out the meat, is to bake them according to the recommended cooking time remove them and crank up your broiler setting, then crisp the skin for a minute under the broiler, turn them and crisp the other side for a minute. You could also conceivably brush them with a sweetish glaze of a wing sauce like mine and then broil them, as well.
