Jake is a big fan of football. Well – actually – a big fan of the Chargers. Once they’re out, he doesn’t care about what happens with the rest of the season and I’m off the hook for having to listen/watch any more games. My compromise is that I offer to cook food while the game is going on so A) I get to hang out in the kitchen and B) then eat some tasty treats. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to make some chicken wings. But – I didn’t want to fry them. I found a recipe online that promised crispy wings. One recipe has you boil the wings first (gasp!) and another uses the method I tried below (from Our Best Bites) which is from the genius people at Cook’s Country. I felt more confident trying out a recipe that they devised! The only thing is that the oven at Jake’s house was thwarting me a bit by not getting hot enough – I’m sure if I tried this again in my kitchen I would get better results, but as it was these turned out to be pretty tasty!
So you need these two things: salt and baking powder.
You make a little mixture of the two.
And then you dump them onto the wings. Toss to coat.
Then arrange the wings on a baking sheet. The wings actually were sort of like… fizzing and making noises that reminded me of Rice Krispies! The idea here is that baking powder/salt mixture helps to draw out the moisture from the wings so you can get a crispy exterior. The wings go into a low oven to get all the moisture out – they’re not really cooking at this point, just doing magical scientific things to help you make crispy wings.
After they sit at a lower temperature, the oven temperature is increased and cranked up to finish off the cooking to get all brown and crispy. This is where the oven at Jake’s house thwarted me – it didn’t really get up to 425 so I had to wing it (ha ha! see what I did there) and just bake until I thought they were done.
I couldn’t get rid of all of the fat… so I made a mixture of melted butter with some wing sauce (medium – not spicy – I’m a wimp after all) to coat the wings in.
And actually these babies turned out to be pretty good. I can only imagine that they’d be better if I had been able to get the oven temperature up properly so you can be sure I’ll be trying these again and expecting perfect results. As it was though, they turned out pretty darn tasty. We used ranch to dip in since Jake finds blue cheese to be unholy. I don’t mind the ranch even though my heart craves the blue dressing, I make compromises for him. He’s lucky he’s cute.
Here’s the recipe if you want to make some wings, too – for those football games or some other occasion that calls for delicious appetizers.
- 4 lbs. chicken wings
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 stick butter (or one stick if you're feeling sassy)
- buffalo sauce
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Prep baking sheet with foil (or silpat - whatever's handy).
- Rinse wings and pat dry and place into a large bowl. Mix together baking powder and salt and pour onto the wings. Toss to coat. Arrange wings on the prepared baking sheet and stick into the oven for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, increase oven temperature to 425 degrees. Bake for 40-50 minutes (depending on how large your wings are) until the wings are golden brown.
- Transfer hot wings into a large bowl. Mix together butter and buffalo sauce and toss onto to wings to coat. Dip into delicious sauce and stuff into your mouth.
Yum! I went through a hot wing phase a few years ago and we bought the huge bag of frozen (uncooked) wings from Costco. Every few days I’d pull some out and bake them up, but it wasn’t the same as frying them. If the baking soda/salt method works, I may need to make room in the freezer for a bag of wings!
(Also, wings demand blue cheese dressing; compromise would be, like, blue cheese ranch dressing…)
Hi Leanne – Even though the oven was wonky, these still tasted good. Haha, I do agree about blue cheese but it seemed silly to buy a bottle of blue cheese just for me. I’ll have to try making blue cheese dressing at home – I’ve done ranch at home and it tastes 1000 times better than store bought stuff.
Whoa that is the first time I have seen baking soda used like that. Maybe I will try something like this for hubby since he handles buffalo wings better than me! Also noticed you used a silpat mat. I have been very curious whether I should buy one if those.
Hi Lynn – The nice thing about this recipe is you can put whatever sauce you want on top – so you could do half buffalo wings for your hubby and half something else for you! I love silpat mats – I have four of them (different brands). I mostly use them for baking cookies since it helps with even cooking and there’s no chance of things sticking to the baking sheet. They’re also pretty easy to clean and reusable. I love mine!
Oh those look good!!! Baking powder part throws me off a bit though. But the wings look so crispy!!! Raw wings are expensive these days. Where did you buy yours? I want to try the flake salt in your pic too.
Hi Faye – I know, the baking powder sounds weird but it’s kind of magical. I got my wings at Whole Foods because I had a gift card but normally I would get them at Fresh & Easy. They have them fresh & frozen there.
Oh my! I love buffalo wings. Perfect for game day.
Thank you, Maggie! Wings make me happy 🙂
Haha, he IS lucky he’s cute! Blue cheese all the way baby. Seriously, though, this method looks great. I’m going to have to try it.
Hi Barbara – Hahah, right?! I love blue cheese! Maybe next time I’ll just slip a little blue cheese into my own dipping sauce.
Oh! I’m going to have to try the baking powder trick next time I make wings! 🙂
Hi Ani – The snap/crackle sound weirded me out at first but it seemed to really work!
I toss them in peanut oil half way through the second cook and they are just as good as fried.