Classic Buffalo Chicken Wings
Right up there at the top of most searched chicken recipes is “chicken wings”.
And when I hear of “chicken wings”, I immediately think “Buffalo Chicken Wings” which were made popular by an ingenious restaurateur by the name of Teressa Bellissimo who back in 1964 served her son and some of his friends some wings as a late night snack on a Friday night at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.
The story goes Teressa deep fried the wings and flavored them with some special sauce. The wings became an instant hit in Buffalo and then around the country. Restaurants (and the chicken industry) loved that someone came up with a way to use the often-neglected chicken wing.
You will find hundreds of recipes for chicken wings on the Internet, some fried, some baked but each with its own unique sauce. I think you will enjoy this recipe that calls for both frying and baking the wings.
And equally important, don’t forget the celery and blue cheese dressing to help ease the pain of the hot sauce.
Blue Cheese Dressing
While the wings are baking you can make your own blue cheese dressing or go to the refrigerator and pull out your personal favorite store bought brand. I prefer homemade but don’t always have the time. You will also want to be getting your celery washed and cut.
Buffalo Chicken Wings Recipe
Equipment
- Deep Skillet or Deep Fryer
Ingredients
For the Wings
- 2 cups canola oil
- 2 lbs chicken wings
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper freshly ground
- 2 tbls hot sauce use whatever hot sauce you like but the original recipe uses Durkee's Franks Original Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce which can be found in many supermarkets or gourmet specialty stores
- 2 tsp white wine vinegar
For the Blue Cheese Dressing
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp onion finely chopped
- 1 tbsp garlic finely chopped
- ⅓ cup fresh parsley chopped
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- ¼ cup blue cheese crumbled
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- The only real prep work is to preheat the oil in a deep skillet or deep-fat fryer if you own one. You want the oil to get to about 375° F.
- While the oil is heating, chop off the tips of each chicken wing and throw them away. Then cut each wing in half at the joint. You will get a "drummette" and a "double-bone"
- Season the bunch with salt and pepper. This is a good time to preheat the oven to 350°F.
- If you are going to make your own Blue Cheese dressing, chop the garlic, onion and parsley while you are waiting for the oil to heat up.
- Fry the wings in the oil until they are golden. Be careful when working around hot oil. The splatter hurts. You will want to move them around while they are frying so not to stick to the pan. Don't try to fry them all at once. Do them in batches. They should take about 7 minutes for each batch to fry.
- Remove them to a plate covered with a couple of layers of paper towels to drain the oil. Then place them in a large bowl.
- In a small saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat.
- Add the hot sauce and vinegar. How much hot sauce you add depends on how hot you like your wings and the heat of the sauce. There is no way I can tell you how much to add. It is a personal preference. Always start with less and add more if it isn't hot enough. For 2 tablespoons of butter, I would start with 2 tablespoons of hot sauce for mild and go from there. A 2 to 1 ration of hot sauce to butter is HOT, a 3 to 1 ratio is EXTREME in my opinion. But let your taste buds be the judge.
- Add the sauce to the wings in the bowl and toss together with kitchen tongs. Here's where I differ from the original recipe. Remove the wings from the bowl with the tongs and place them on a baking pan. You can line the pan with foil to help with clean up. Just don't crowd the wings or they will steam rather than bake. Bake the wings for about 15 minutes.
How to make the Blue Cheese dressing
- In a small bowl, add all the ingredients together. Gently stir together until well mixed. At this point you can put cover and put the bowl in the refrigerator until the wings are ready. If you like to serve your wings with cold blue cheese dressing, make ahead of time and chill.
- If you want to get fancy, spread the wings and celery out on a platter with the bowl of blue cheese dressing in the center.
Suites me,easy to make and wonderful for my big family.
THANKS!!
I need simple already at home ingridients. Would just plain viniger work or is it manditory for white wine?
What hot sauce did you use?
The original recipe uses Durkee’s Franks Original Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce and I can’t remember what hot sauce I used but I think any will do.
This puts me on a whole new level in my friendship circle. We all love spur JUST for buffalo wings and blue cheese souce and now we only need to go as far as my own kitchen to make it. Thanx for who ever posted this, was easy to read and easy to make…
awesome!!
Very easy to make. Thanks
WRONG!!! This recipe started at the Iron Horse Cafe in Buffalo and they only used Tabasco sauce and butter for coating the deep fried wings.