The Best Buffalo Chicken Wing Recipe

Hi, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and tonight we're going to make my famous buffalo chicken wings with the legendary sauce. And I'm also going to show you how to make a really simple blue cheese dressing. I mean, I know there's a lot of great blue cheeses out on the market, but it's just as easy to make your own, and you know, it probably tastes a whole lot better too. So we're going to get started on the blue cheese, and the whole secret to the blue cheese is really getting some of the blue cheese flavor into the mix, not just putting crumbles into it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with my food processor, and I'm actually going to put everything in. If I was making a larger amount, I usually puree the blue cheese first, but with this size amount, I'm actually just going to put everything in except for some of the, some of the crumbles. And I'm using a cup of mayonnaise, a cup of sour cream, and you can also use a low-fat sour cream, or you could use Greek yogurt. They'll work great too. And then I'm going to put in about a quarter cup of milk. And I'm going to put in half of my crumbles. Reserve half so I have some chunks in the blue cheese itself.

Very simply, I'm just going to let it warm a little bit and smooth out. And what we're doing is the blue cheese is really going to get pureed, and the flavor is going to permeate all through the rest of the stuff.

I'm going to put this down and give it a little bit more.

That's it.

Okay, so it actually takes you longer to get the stuff out of the containers than it does to make it. Nice consistency. Thick. Smooth. Now, you can season this if you like some different seasonings in it, a little granulated onion. A little bit of black pepper. Every now and then you might need a little bit of salt in it, but I would taste it before you ever do salt because depending on how salty that cheese you have is, you could end up having it be too salty. All right, so now I've got all that in here and I'm just going to pop in some of the crumbles. Actually, I'm going to do them all because I like a lot of chunks in my blue cheese. From here, we're just mixing them in. Excuse me one minute, I forgot the blue box myself.

Yep, that's better.

Okay, so I'm just mixing them in. Nice and mixed. We got a nice chunky blue cheese dressing. That's as simple as that. All right, now I do have my fryer on. Actually was going to do it right here with the new induction cooker, but the oil started getting really, really hot and I was afraid I'd set my smoke alarms off. So we went back to the range hood where I do have a fan. So before we do anything else I'm just gonna take care of my chicken. And one of the things that makes Philly wings different— I really don't know how they are in a lot of other places, but traditionally Buffalo wings, you don't coat them, you just drop them in the fryer, they cook for, you know, a set amount of time, and then you pop them out and you sauce them. But around this area, they dredge them in flour, cornstarch, different things, and you can get them They call them naked, without anything on them, or you can get them with the flour on. And I really prefer the flour. It gives the sauce more things to cling to, and it gets them a little crispier. So I just have some wings that I cut up, some nice-sized ones, and I'm going to pop them in my flour. And the only thing I have in the flour is a little sea salt and a little black pepper. I have too small of a bowl for this many wings, so— I'm going to use my hand to mix them. Normally I would just toss them a little bit.

And we're just going to get a nice coating of flour on the wings.

And this is really the Philly style or the Ocean City style, if you want to call them that too, because around there they're all the way they serve wings. Okay, so let me see if my oil's hot enough. Yes, it is.

So I'm going to drop these in. All right, and one thing you do want to be careful of when you're doing wings is not to overcrowd the pan. You don't want to put too many in it so that the oil is going to get cold. They're not going to fry right, and they'll start getting more greasy than really crispy. So put enough in the pan, but don't have them layered and don't have them touching so there's no room in between. Give them a little room to breathe, a little room to cook, and you'll be a lot better off for it.

All right.

Now we're going to make my sauce. Sauce is so simple, you won't believe it. And it is the best buffalo wing sauce, hands down, that I've had around here in this area. I'm not just all about heat. It's about flavor. And, you know, I like it to be hot. I don't like it quite as hot as I used to. I guess getting old kind of does that to you. But I like some flavor in them. And very simple to make. You start with melted butter, and I melted a stick and a half ahead of time so it would be ready. And I've used a lot of different sauces. One of my favorites was Louisiana Hot, and then I couldn't get it for the longest time. So I started using Frank's, and the regular sauce was good. It was okay. And then one day by accident, I bought the wing sauce. Now as a wing sauce, I don't like it just straight, but if you mix it in with everything else, it really adds a lot of nice flavor to everything. You can always turn the heat up. I have a stick and a half of butter. I have a 12-ounce bottle of Frank's. This is the whole key to making this sauce really be spectacular and really clean and really be a great sauce.

Say, Chef.

Yes.

Just out of curiosity, what's the ounce weight on that bottle?

That's a 12-ounce bottle. 12-ounce bottle, we have a stick and a half of butter. All right, now you can't see it real, real well here, but the sauce is so nice and thick. And you can see from the pictures, okay, what it does, it's, it's emulsifying. All right, now I'm going to add the honey in. I have 4 ounces, half a cup of honey, and that's to take a little bit of the edge off the heat. Just mix it in. I'm going to see if I can get this up close enough. You can see how thick and how nice the sauce has come out. That's all there is to it. The whole secret to this is not letting this get too hot. A lot of people put their sauce right on the stove. They get the butter hot, they put the hot sauce in, they get it really hot, and what happens is it breaks. As soon as it breaks, no matter how many times you whip it back up, you're going to end up with a puddle of grease in the bottom of your plate. The one thing I hate more than anything is getting wings, because I love wings, and then the bottom of it, you see, is just a mess of grease and separated. You can't rub them in the sauce anymore. You can't dip your celery in them because it's just a mess. By doing this, let's see if I can get a spoon and show you a little better consistency. That's simply— now you can heat it a little bit more, all right, if you were to put it on the stove a little bit, but you just got to be careful that it doesn't get too hot.

And you really don't need it.

It's beautiful. Too, too hot, okay? Because if you get it too, too hot, it will break, and the wings are coming out pretty hot. So, you know, that's all you really need with them. All right, let me check my wings and I'll be right back. Alright, they're cooking and I'm committing the cardinal sin here of not having them ready ahead of time. And we're going to have a little dead time between the wings and saucing them and showing them to you. So if there are any questions out there or anybody has anything they'd like to know, you know, that's a good time to ask. If not, we'll sit here and watch the wings cook a little bit.

There is a question, Chef.

Yes.

This one comes from— let me go back to that page. There we are. Just a second. There we are. Amy Stafford wants to know what temperature you have the oil at.

The oil I have on high right now, medium-high. If I was in a restaurant where I had a thermometer sticking in all the time, I would say it'd be about 375°F. All right, anywhere from 350 to 375 is always a good temp. And you got to remember, as soon as you put the wings in there, that temperature is probably dropping about 40, 50 degrees easy. So, you know, it's got to heat back up with them, which is why you don't want to overcrowd it, right? Right, because the more you put in, the longer it's going to take to reheat. And you do want to get— you don't need color on it. I mean, it's nice if they get crispy and brown, but you know, as long as they cook through. And the whole thing about cooking the wings, you're really cooking them longer than you need to because they cook pretty fast. That's what gets them tender. And that's what, you know, when the meat just kind of falls off the bone. Now, if you don't want to fry them, that's not a problem. This sauce works great. I grill wings during the summer and it works great on grill wings. I've tried putting the sauce on and then grilling them.. And it really doesn't come out quite as good. They tend to burn a little bit more because of the honey in there. But just grill them normally, let them cook, dunk them in the sauce, and you've got some nice grilled buffalo wings. You want to bake them, you can bake them. Anyway you do them, they'll come out great. But the sauce is just that good. The sauce makes up for a lot of things.

Once again, this is what's— Go ahead, Jenny.

I'm sorry, Brooks. I have a real quick question. I'm sorry I came in late. That's okay. But I was wondering if you brought the wings up to room temperature so it would wouldn't have as much of an impact on the oil temperature.

Actually, I did, Jenny. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, I had the wings out when I cut them up about maybe 45 minutes ago, and I let them stay out for a little while just so they wouldn't be ice cold when they hit the oil and take even longer to come up. So that's a good thing to point out. It's fine to leave them out for a while. And also, while we're talking about leaving the chicken out, It's also important when you use chicken that you clean up after yourself pretty well. Get a nice disinfectant, and when you're done working with chicken on a cutting board or on a counter, you want to spray it down. You want to clean it really well because you can get some cross-contamination otherwise. You never know who might catch a little bit of something from being in chicken blood or having that drip into something else. Be careful about what you're doing with poultry. You don't want to get anybody homesick or any guests sick. And reports are that foodborne illnesses account for so many times that we think we have the flu. It's about 90% of the time we think we have the flu. Not during flu season right now, but other times it's because you ate something that was mishandled. So that's a good thing to do is be careful at home too.

Jeff, we've got a question from the event page.

Yeah.

And Kim Baltman wants to know, does the kind of butter affect the outcome of the sauce? Salted or unsalted? Good quality or generic?

Good question. I would say the cheaper the butter and not quality, you know, you're probably not going to have as good of a product. So I mean, I buy two kinds of butter. I buy always unsalted for everything I cook with. And then I buy Kerrygold salted for bread, or if I just want to taste butter, because it is by far one of the tastiest butters going out there. But any other butter you buy, AA at least. And I don't— like I said, I don't have salted butter in the house except for the Kerrygold, and that's like I said, just for bread or for eating. Any other questions?

What happens if I mean, I've had it happen before where I've cooked the chicken and it's got blood still at the bone on the small part of the leg. How do you tell if it's cooked? If the outside is too browned?

The easiest way is to use— thought I heard something back there. The easiest way is to use a meat thermometer if you're not sure. Stick it into the meat, you know, get it away from the bone, and look for a temperature of at least 165 degrees to make sure it's cooked. But, um, yeah, if you're not sure, I would err on the side of good judgment. Just let it cook a little bit longer. One interesting fact: if you ever get wings and you see the bones are black, called a black bone, I mean, the chicken was frozen. It wasn't fresh chicken. That's what happens to the bones. Inside, the blood sets differently. Let me check my wings. I'll be right back. Ah, now they're looking really good. They're nice and brown and crisp. Couple more minutes and they'll be ready to go. I am in the mood for wings tonight. Little pre-Super Bowl treat here. Well, I would probably eat wings 3 or 4 times a week if my stomach could take it. One of my favorite sandwiches, while we're talking about wings too, is a buffalo chicken grilled cheese sandwich, which is just outrageous. The same sauce, I use chicken thighs and cook them, roast them, and then just take the meat off the bone and toss it in the sauce and put it between my grilled cheese and then grill it. Just throw a little blue cheese in there too. Mmm. Doesn't get better than that. It really is good. I'm such a simple guy, you know, forget the steak or the prime rib or the lobster, just give me a grilled cheese sandwich with buffalo chicken in it.

Now you call these Philly style?

Well, you know, I haven't been a lot of places I've ordered wings, and I know other cities I have been in, they don't always flour them. So I kind of call that our local style. You know, I grew up on them down the shore in Somers Point, Ocean City, and it was something new that started. And there was a guy at one of the local places and he just started passing them around and everybody just started coating them a little bit. Some of them get them in cornstarch just to get a little crunch to them. Now around here you go in places and they'll offer them to you naked or coated. Whichever way you want. I think the purists don't put anything on. When I first started making buffalo wings, it was just right into the fryer. It was cooking.

Yeah, I don't think I'd say no to them regardless.

What's that, Jenny?

I don't think I'd say no regardless.

Oh, either way. Wings are wonderful, but the nice thing with the breading is it just gives the sauce more nooks and crannies to soak into. And even at school, like, my girls, they won't eat wings very often, but if I do chicken tenders, I can't cook them fast enough. They love Buffalo chicken tenders. That's just because that breading has so many more surfaces to let that sauce soak into and really get tasty. So I think that accounts for part of it. They're just about ready.

Okay, and we have our wings.

Mm-hmm.

And they got a nice coating on them, nice and cooked, and they cooked for about— I'd say they cooked for about 12 minutes, which is more than enough time for them to be done. So now I let them drain a little bit. I don't want to be worried about a lot of fat here. Not that I should worry, I guess, at this point. The worst part of the chicken dipped in butter and then dripped and dipped in blue cheese. It's kind of not a heart-healthy meal today.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Just go for it.

All right, so the way I do them is just pour them in a pan, hit them with some of this nice sauce. And just give them a good coating.

Now that's what I call the toss of experience.

Mm-hmm. They move aside at school because I'm tossing a bowl probably about 4 times that size. You're never quite sure what you're gonna hit. There's your wings. Okay, see how the sauce holding together? And you won't ever have a puddle of grease in the bottom of these. And people can dip into this and it's just really, really good. And I would take a bite of one of these, but they're so hot right now. Besides making a mess all over the place, and I always get things on my coat no matter how hard I try. It'd burn my mouth terribly too. But that's it. That's my buffalo chicken wings for your Super Bowl party. And you know, if you don't want to do wings, do some tenders and make a grilled cheese sandwich while you're at it. Have fun with it. Enjoy it. And I'll see you next time. Thanks for stopping by.