Belly Burning Buffalo Wings

Last tweaked January, 2021.

I’ve been all around this great country of ours and I’ve tried a lot of Buffalo wings… sometimes they get it right, and hot means HOT. But often enough, they’re served up weak–or dry–and you end up loading them up with the hot sauce on the table just so you can feel like there’s something in your mouth. And guys like us are always looking to out do one another when it comes to how hot we can handle it… your buddy orders his atomic, so you order yours insanely atomic… I’ve been there. So with that in mind I’ve created Belly Burning Buffalo Wings.

Honestly, there are quite a few buffalo wing recipes out there, and most of them are the same… but these are about the hottest you’ll enjoy before you can’t feel your lips anymore. Too hot, and you can’t taste the delicious wing of the buffalo. It’s rewarding to feel the burn, but in actuality you want to enjoy the tasty experience, don’t you?

Another word about this recipe… I never seem to make wings the same way twice, and each time I make them, I like them that way the best.  So I have modified this to be an all-purpose recipe… a guide if you will. Whether you want to bake, fry or grill your wings, this is the one-and-only Buffalo wing recipe that you’ll ever need.  It’s easy to scale too.

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds of chicken wings
• 4 tablespoons of butter
• 3/4 cup of Frank’s Red Hot sauce or an equivalently hot sauce
• 2 tablespoons of Tabasco sauce (optional)
• 1 teaspoon of Dave’s Insanity Sauce (or your favorite brand of “insanely” hot sauce or anything else you want to use to make this unique, optional)
• 2 tablespoons of vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of McCormick’s Montreal Chicken Seasoning (Steak Seasoning is also an option here)
• 1 teaspoon of Cayenne pepper (my favorite pepper)
• 1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
• 4 tablespoons of flour
• cooking oil (if you are frying)
• 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil (baking or grilling)
• celery & blue cheese are optional (just like at Hooters)
• lots of beer to wash it all down

Prepare the wings by cutting them into two sections and toss the tip… they don’t need it anymore and you’re not gonna eat it.

Add the wings to a bowl and lightly shake on the McCormick Montreal Seasoning (man, that stuff is good) and the Cayenne pepper (man, that stuff is good too). Add 4 tablespoons of flour with the McCormick’s and Cayenne. If you are going to be grilling, add 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil. You can also add oil if you are baking, but I typically prefer a light coating of oil on the pan instead. An additional seasonings to try is Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning.

Baking powder is optional, but when added to the dry mix helps dry out the chicken skin, leaving it crisp and crunchy. This works best with frying and baking. It does not seem to do much with grilling.

Fry way: Start getting your deepest frying pan (or your fryer, if you have one) warmed up with enough oil to cover one layer of wings completely. You can tell when the oil is hot enough by sticking something like a wooden match or the end of a wooden spoon into the oil. If the oil bubbles around it, it’s hot enough to fry. If you put food into oil before it is hot enough, it will just soak into the food and make it excessively greasy. Fry the wings about 12-15 minutes… don’t try to cook them all at once unless you have a huge fryer. Six or seven at a time may be all your pan can handle before the oil bubbles over.

Bake up!: Oven to 400. Use a big pan (or two) so that you can spread the wings out in one layer, or two the most.  Keep the wings covered for the first :25 minutes, uncovered for the last :25 minutes. Time is approximate… oven temps are a bitch.

Grill ’em: Spray your grill with non-stick spray.  Light it and get your (probably) gas grill as hot as you can. After you put the wings on in a single layer, lower the heat way, way down.  Grill times and temps vary with size, BTU’s and yes, grill quality, but I’ll start with about 30 minutes.  Rotate each wing once.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the vinegar and the Red Hot, Tabasco and/or Dave’s Insanity Sauce. If you’ve never tried Dave’s now is the time, and for cluck’s sake, go easy on the Insanity sauce if it’s your first time! You truly don’t need three different hot sauces. Frank’s is de-facto, but adding Tabasco or Dave’s adds the serious heat. Know your audience! When the butter is all melted and everything is mixed together, turn the heat way down low to keep the pan warm.

When your wings are done, drain them off (if you fried or baked) and toss them in the hot sauce in a large bowl.  Mix well.

Serve em up with the celery sticks and blue cheese dressing… they can really help take the edge off. Oh, and don’t forget to drink beer with them… even though beer will NOT help sooth the heat, it’s an important part of the winged experience.

A fun alternative is to not mix the wings into your sauce… make it a dip. Then you can add bowls of teriyaki or Frank’s Red Hot’s Sweet Chili dipping sauce on the side and let your guests decide what kind of wing they want.