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Crispy chicken wings and hot sauce. That’s it. That’s the entire pitch. If you need more convincing than that, I don’t know what to tell you.
These wings are a staple in our house and they’ve featured in more than a few videos on my YouTube channel, usually with disastrous (and delicious) consequences. The secret here isn’t just the crunch, it’s the sauce. My Blazing Buffalo hot sauce brings a proper vinegary heat that cuts through all that crispy skin and makes you reach for another wing before you’ve even finished chewing the first.
Crispy Chicken Wings with Blazing Buffalo Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 kg Chicken Wings
- Beef Dripping for frying
- Flour for dusting
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Blazing Buffalo Extreme Hot Sauce as much as you like!
- Butter for the sauce
Instructions
- Start by splitting the chicken wings into the drumette and wingette, discarding the tip (or save them for a different recipe).
- Pat the wings dry and lightly dust them with flour, salt, and pepper. This helps in achieving a crispy exterior.
- Heat beef drippings in a deep fryer or a deep pan until it reaches the optimal frying temperature.
- Fry the chicken wings in batches to ensure they are not overcrowded. This step is crucial for achieving that perfect crunch.
- In a bowl, melt about a tablespoon of butter.
- Mix in your Blazing Buffalo Extreme hot sauce generously, ensuring a smooth and even blend.
- Once the chicken wings are golden and crispy, let them drain any excess oil.
- Toss the wings in the buffalo sauce mixture, ensuring they are well coated.
- Serve the wings on a platter, garnished with a sprinkle of parsley or chives.
- Accompany with celery sticks and a dip of your choice, like a blue cheese or ranch dressing.
Watch Us Put These Wings to the Test
Making the wings is the easy part. Eating them when they’re coated in something genuinely painful is where it gets interesting. I’ve roped the family into a few wing challenges on the channel and, honestly, the results are always entertaining. Tears, regret, questionable life choices. The full experience.
There’s a whole spicy eating playlist on the channel.
Why This Crispy Chicken Wings Recipe Works
Most buffalo wing recipes out there use Frank’s RedHot or similar off-the-shelf sauces. Nothing wrong with that, but if you’ve got access to a proper hot sauce with real depth of flavour, the whole dish goes up a level.
The crunch. Getting truly crispy chicken wings at home isn’t complicated, but you do need to get a few things right. Dry skin is everything. If you skip that step, you’re going to get sad, soggy wings and nobody wants that.
The sauce. Blazing Buffalo isn’t your average buffalo sauce. It’s got that classic vinegary tang you want on wings, but with a chilli heat that builds and lingers rather than just hitting you with a wall of cayenne. It’s the kind of sauce that makes you sweat a bit and then immediately reach for another wing anyway.
The simplicity. This isn’t a fussy recipe. Wings, seasoning, hot oil, sauce. Deep frying gives you that proper golden crunch you can’t quite replicate any other way, and the whole thing comes together fast once your oil is up to temperature.
Tips for the Crispiest Chicken Wings
Getting restaurant-level crispy wings at home is easier than you think. Here are the things that actually make a difference.
Pat your wings bone dry. This is the single most important step. Use kitchen paper and really press down. Any moisture left on the skin is going to spit and splutter when it hits the hot oil, and wet skin doesn’t crisp up properly. If you’ve got time, leave them uncovered on a wire rack in the fridge for a few hours (or overnight) and the skin will dry out even further. That’s when you get the really good crunch.
Get your oil temperature right. You want 350°F to 375°F (175°C to 190°C). Too low and the wings absorb oil and go greasy. Too high and the outside burns before the inside cooks through. Use a thermometer if you’ve got one. If you haven’t, a small piece of bread dropped in should sizzle and turn golden in about 30 seconds when the oil is ready.
Don’t overcrowd the pot. Fry in batches. If you dump all your wings in at once, the oil temperature drops and you end up with soggy, greasy wings instead of crispy ones. A few at a time, keep that oil hot, and drain them on a wire rack when they come out.
Sauce them while they’re hot. The wings should be piping hot when you toss them in the Blazing Buffalo sauce. The heat helps the sauce cling to the skin and creates that glossy, sticky coating you’re after.
What Is Blazing Buffalo Hot Sauce?
If you haven’t tried Blazing Buffalo yet, it’s one of my favourite sauces in the ChilliChump range. It takes the classic buffalo sauce flavour profile (vinegar, butter, heat) and pushes it further with a proper chilli kick that goes well beyond your typical supermarket hot sauce.
It’s not just for wings either. It works brilliantly as a marinade, stirred into mayo for a spicy dip, drizzled over loaded fries, or anywhere you’d normally use hot sauce but want something with more character.
You can grab a bottle from the ChilliChump store.
What to Serve with Buffalo Chicken Wings
- Blue cheese dip is the classic and it’s classic for a reason. The creamy, tangy flavour is the perfect counterbalance to the heat of the buffalo sauce.
- Celery and carrot sticks might seem boring, but they give your mouth a break between wings. That cool crunch resets your palate so the next wing hits just as hard as the first.
- A cold drink. I’ll leave the specifics to you, but the contrast of spicy wings with something ice cold is hard to beat.
- Loaded fries or nachos. If you’re going all in on a wing night, you might as well commit. A tray of fries with cheese, spring onions, and a drizzle of extra Blazing Buffalo doesn’t hurt.
For more ideas, check out the full collection of spicy recipes on the site. There’s plenty there to build a proper feast around.
Watch Me Make These Wings
If you want to see the full process (and watch me suffer through the heat a bit), here’s the video:
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you get chicken wings really crispy?
Deep frying at the right temperature is the best way to get a proper crunch. Heat your oil to 350°F to 375°F (175°C to 190°C), pat the wings completely dry before they go in, and fry in small batches so the oil stays hot. Drain them on a wire rack rather than kitchen paper so the skin stays crisp on all sides.
What makes buffalo sauce different from regular hot sauce?
Traditional buffalo sauce is a combination of hot sauce and melted butter, which gives it that rich, tangy, slightly creamy quality. Regular hot sauce on its own tends to be thinner and more vinegar-forward. Blazing Buffalo from ChilliChump takes that classic combination and adds a deeper chilli heat that builds as you eat.
Can you oven bake chicken wings instead of deep frying?
You can, but the results are different. Deep frying gives you that shatteringly crispy skin that’s hard to replicate in an oven. If you do want to bake them, pat them dry, use a wire rack over a baking tray, and cook at a high temperature. They’ll still taste great tossed in Blazing Buffalo, but for the best crunch, frying is the way to go.
How long do you deep fry chicken wings?
At 350°F to 375°F (175°C to 190°C), chicken wings typically take around 8 to 12 minutes depending on their size. They’re done when the skin is deep golden and crispy and the juices run clear. Fry in batches to keep the oil temperature steady and you’ll get consistent results every time.
What’s the best hot sauce for chicken wings?
I’m biased, but Blazing Buffalo hot sauce was literally designed for this. The vinegar tang, the butter richness and the chilli heat all come together in a way that coats wings perfectly.