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Get Ready for Game Day
I’ve been craving bar food lately. Specifically, perfectly crispy Buffalo Hot Wings with Blue Cheese dip and celery. I think I must be feeling a little nostalgic about that time in my life, pre-covid and pre-baby, when I would venture out to bars to watch the game with my husband or decompress with my co-workers after a long hard shift. These Crispy Buffalo Wings satisfy this craving.
I know air fryers are all the rage right now, and before that, it was the Fry Daddy. Both those devices would undoubtedly make nice crispy wings, but if you’ve been reading this blog you know I have an aversion to special kitchen gadgets. Less is more, especially when you’re kitchen is small. I’m not dissing the air-fryer, I’ve never used one (never felt the need), but you don’t need anything but your regular old household oven to make these perfectly crispy hot wings.
These wings are perfect for Game Day, Superbowl Sunday, casual dinner parties, and cookouts or just because.
Tips for Crispy Oven Chicken Wings
Crank up the heat
Home ovens are not as powerful as commercial ovens and they recover their heat slowly after opening the oven door. If you want to crisp something up like chicken skin or get a nice charring effect on roasted veggies, you need to turn your oven up high to 450-550 F and use convection if you have it. If you have it, convection should be used for everything (except baking cakes).
I use a standard mid-grade GE oven at home. One that I think represents average heat recovery, insulation, and power for home ovens. If you are using a Viking or Wolfe or something really powerful, you will want to adjust your cooking time down a bit. If you are using a really old, poorly insulated, non-convection oven, adjust your cooking time up and refrain from opening the door unnecessarily.
Use Air-Chilled Chicken
Air Chilled Chicken tends to be a higher-end product, often used with free-range and organic birds. It may be more expensive but you’re not paying for added water weight, and the drier skin crisps up better when cooked. If you are using conventional non-Air-Chilled Chicken, it is especially important to pat the wings down well with paper towels and leave them in the fridge uncovered for at least a couple of hours or a day to dry.
Frozen chicken wings are often sold with the directions “to cook straight from frozen”. Don’t do this if you want crispy wings (and who doesn’t). When frozen meat thaws, the ice crystals break down into free water which has been pulled out of the muscle. If you cook directly from frozen, this process will happen in your oven and cause you to steam your wings instead of roast them. You will never get crispy by steaming. If you buy frozen wings, thaw them first a day or two prior to cooking, pat them dry once completely thawed, and leave them uncovered for at least a couple of hours or a day in the fridge.
Variations
There is something magical about the Classic Buffalo flavor combo, just the right amount of heat, with the cooling blue cheese and refreshing, palate-cleansing celery…. but variety is the spice of life. So if you are in the mood to venture away from Classic Buffalo, try substituting Frank’s Hot Sauce in the Classic Buffalo Sauce with:
- Dijon and Honey
- Siracha
- BBQ Sauce
- Sweet Chili Sauce
- Jamaican Jerk Spice Mix (mixed with butter)
- Mojo (Cuban citrus sauce)
- Teriyaki
- Yuzu
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Print
Crispy Hot Wings. No special equipment needed.
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 appetizer servings 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This recipe makes perfectly crispy chicken wings in the oven. Adjust the heat by using your favorite hot sauce.
Ingredients
2 lbs dry chicken wings (see note)
salt
1 cup flour
3 Tablespoons Hot Sauce (Franks, Tobasco, other)
1 1/2 Tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon minced celery leaves and stalk for the innermost core of celery
1/2 cup your favorite blue cheese dip
Instructions
Sprinkle the wings with salt and leave uncovered for a couple of hours
Preheat the oven to 500 F.
In a mixing bowl, toss the wings with flour. Place the wings in a sieve and shake off the excess flour. You may need to do this in a couple of batches depending on how big your sieve is.
Spray a sheet pan with cooking spay. Place the wings on the sheet pan. Lightly spray them with cooking spray too. Place the pan in the oven.
Bake for 15 minutes and then spin the sheet pan. Bake for another 15 minutes or longer until nice and crispy. If your oven is not convection and is going real slow, you may want to remove the pan (close the oven fast), flip the wings over, and place back in the oven.
While the wings are baking, add the hot sauce and butter to a microwave safe mixing bowl, and heat the sauce. When the wings come out of the oven, immediately toss them with the buttery hotsauce.
Transfer these wings to a plate, sprinkle with the minced celery leaves (the tender green/yellow ones from the heart of the celery) and serve with your favorite blue cheese dressing.
Enjoy!
Post originally published March 2021.
These look so tasty and I have all the ingredients at home! Can’t wait to make these!
We love a good hot wing recipe – can’t wait to give these a try!
Delicious. Everybody love chicken wings including myself. Thank you for making the recipe really simple. Can’t wait to make for this dinner.
I am having friends over on the weekend, so I will have to give these wings and sauce a go. They look delicious, love that they are simply oven baked. Cheers
This is so easy and good. The whole family thinks the wings are fun
Kara these were excellent! my oven took too long to preheat on convection mode so I put them in early but they still came out super crispy. I also added a bit of honey to the butter/hot sauce mix.