Ingredients
- Crispy Baked Wings
- 4 lb / 2 kg chicken wings, wingettes & drumettes (Note 1a)
- 2 tbsp baking powder (NOT baking soda / bi-carb soda)
- 3/4 teaspoons salt
- Sauce
- 4 tbsp / 60g unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 cup Frank’s Original Red Hot Sauce (Note 1b)
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Blue Cheese Dip
- 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese, softened (I use gorgonzola)
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1 clove small garlic, minced
- 1 - 3 tbsp milk
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Black pepper
- To Serve
- Celery sticks
- Lots of beer
Preparation
Step 1
Crispy Baked Wings
Lay the wings on a rack on a rimmed baking tray and let them dry in the fridge overnight. Alternatively, pat them dry with paper towels.
Preheat the oven to 250F / 120C (all oven types - standard/convection/fan). Put one oven shelf in the lower quarter of the oven and one in the top quarter.
Place the wings in a large ziplock bag. Add the baking powder and salt. Shake the bag to coat the wings evenly.
Line the tray with foil. Spray the rack on the baking tray with oil. Place the wings skin side up on the rack (ok if snug, they shrink). Bake on the lower shelf in the oven for 30 minutes.
Then move the tray up to the higher shelf and turn the oven up to 425F / 220C. Bake for a further 40 to 50 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through. The wings do not need to be turned over. The wings are ready when they are dark golden brown and the skin is very crispy.
Toss with Hot Sauce and serve immediately with Blue Cheese Dip and celery sticks. They can be served plain, with a dipping sauce or tossed in sauce.
Sauce
Whisk together the Sauce ingredients. Keep warm or reheat just prior to using.
Blue Cheese Dip
Mash the blue cheese with sour cream until smooth (or to your taste).
Add remaining ingredients and mix well until combined, using milk to get it to the consistency you want.
Store in the fridge until required. Remove from the fridge 15 minutes before serving.
Recipe Notes
1a. Here in Australia, chicken wings are usually sold whole rather than cut into drumettes and wingettes. While this recipe can be used for whole chicken wings, I prefer to cut them to make them easier to eat. See below for how to cut wings. My butcher charges almost double if I get him to do it, so I prefer to do it myself!
You will need 2.15kg / 4.3 lb of whole wings to make 2kg/4lb of wingettes and drumettes, after taking into account the wing tips which are discarded.
1b. If you are in Australia, you can find Frank's Hot Sauce at Coles and Woolworths in the section where tomato sauce, tabasco etc are. It costs around the same as other hot sauces. If you can't find Franks, then any other hot sauce will do just fine. Even sriracha works - just add 1 tsp of sugar.
2. You will notice once the wings come out of the oven that they are smaller than usual. This is because the fat under the skin melts off (renders out) while baking in the low oven.
3. The wings will not bake to a dark golden brown unless you leave them in for 1 hr+. They bake to a golden brown. You will know they are done because the skin will be lovely and crispy.
4. The recipe for the wings is from Cook's Illustrated "Meats Book" cookbook. The sauce recipe is my own.
5. To reheat: Allow to cool, then cover and refrigerate - do not coat with sauce. The skin will wrinkle and soften. Preheat oven to 200C/390F. Spread wings out on tray, skin side up, and bake for 5 to 8 minutes or until the skin puffs up so the wrinkles smooth out and becomes crisp again.
6. These stay crispy for as long as the wings are warm, so around 20 – 30 minutes. The skin stays crispy for around 10 – 15 minutes after tossing in the sauce, then after that they start to soften but not go soggy, up to around 30 minutes. If you reheat after tossing in sauce, they go soggy.
7. Comprehensive FAQ is available in the original Truly Crispy Oven Baked Wings.
8. Oven Baked Buffalo Wings nutrition for just plain crispy wings (419 cal) and including the hot sauce (476 cal), both assuming 8 servings. Note that the wings have been adjusted to reflect the amount of fat that is rendered out (I measured the fat I poured off the tray ? ).