The only thing I find interesting about football is football food. The sport doesn’t hold my interest at all, while thoughts of delicious appetizers make me excited.
Jake wanted to watch a Chargers game and asked if I would make hot wings. Pfft, you barely have to ask me to do such things. “Make something delicious!” he says. “Okay!” I say. That might be the basis for our relationship.
Maybe.
[butter and hot sauce mixture]
I made a hot sauce mixture from scratch and took it to Jake’s house to pour over the wings.
This is the hot sauce mixture inside of butter. Looks kind of gloopy and weird, doesn’t it? It also seems like a hefty amount of butter, but I did prepare four pounds of chicken wings…
Also, it’s only a half a stick of butter. I’m not Paula Deen, y’all.
[pouring the hot sauce]
I want you to know that in retrospect, I would not have not poured the sauce over the wings first. I should have put this sauce on after the grilling since the sauce pretty much evaporated into thin air while cooking.
So basically, don’t do this. I’m showing you an image of what not to do. Just sprinkle some salt and pepper over those wings and don’t do what I did. Or you can try it if you want. I won’t judge you and the recipe police aren’t going to take you way or anything.
You know why? Because they don’t exist! Woo hoo!
My idea was that I was marinading the wings, so I put the wings back into the bag they came and ported these over for grilling at my house. No sense in dirtying up another bag of plastic, right?
I decided that grilled was the best option. It was hella hot that weekend (like, triple digit record breaking hot) and turning on the oven was out of the question. My dad already had the grill on for some ribs he was making, so we just threw my wings on.
Best idea ever!
The wings got kind of crispy and crunchy from sitting on the grill. They kind of stuck to the grill a little, too. But no matter. I used my chicken wing turning skills to the max and didn’t lose too much of that delicious skin in the process.
Oh man, these looks better than fried wings! The only thing was… now they were totally not saucy. Not sauce makes Jake a sad, sad boy. They were also not very hot anymore. Seeing as I was too lazy to re-concoct the hot sauce I had originally made, I decided to just comprise.
I doused the wings with a mixture of the three sauces above instead. Not too bad, but I wonder what it would have been like with the sauce I made the first time… oh, regret!
No matter though, the wings were totally delicious despite my attempts to mess it up!
I even made homemade ranch dressing!
Here’s a secret: homemade ranch dressing is so awesome! And super easy to make!
Why doesn’t anyone tell us this stuff? Make me have to figure it out for myself. Sheesh.
Besides the grilled hot wings and homemade ranch dressing, we had some veggies and some herb marinated mozzarella balls with some grilled bread.
I put the bread on the grill right after the wings so they must have soaked up some of that flavor because both my dad and Jake asked me what I put on the bread.
“Olive oil and salt,” I replied. Both said, “That’s it? Really?”
If you’re looking for a few appetizers to whip up this fall for football or just for the sake of eating, give these recipes a whirl!
Grilled Hot Wings
Adapated from cdkitchen.com
4 lbs of chicken wings
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 tablespoons hot sauce
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Mix together all of the ingredients into a nice, smooth, non-gloopy mess.
Prepare the chicken wings with salt and pepper. Heat up your grill to 300-325 degrees and cook for 20-30 minutes, until wings are golden and delicious.
Pour magic sauce all over the wings.
Homemade Ranch Dressing
Adapted from the Pioneer Woman
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup real mayonnaise
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup Italian flat-leaf parsley leaves, minced
1 teaspoon dill (fresh if you can get it)
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 cup buttermilk (as needed for desired consistency)
Mince garlic and then add salt – mash it with your knife to create a lovely garlic paste.
Combine all ingridents together in a little mash-up. Be sure to season and taste as you go along, adjusting to your liking. When making this again, I think I would use more sour cream and a little less mayo for my tastes!
Chill dressing for a couple of hours before serving. Dip your wings into it!
Mmm, these do look as good as fried wings. Now I want to make some grilled ones
I think they were better than fried ones! More flavorful to me.
The BBQ wings were outrages, adding the sauce at the end would have moved it up a notch though. I recommend the Ranch Dressing with the wings just another over the top richness that it deserves.
wait a second… chili garlic cholula?!? that has GOT to be delicious.. where’d you get it from??
haha, I actually got it from a PR company this summer… but I think you can find it at the grocery store! I haven’t actually looked for it though… it is pretty tasty, I like it slightly more than the original.
Those wings look so tasty! I totally need to try your recipe sometime. I grew up eating Mexican style grilled wings. Some of the families on my block while I was growing up would always make these wonderful wings at every party. They were chili and lime flavored and were marinated the day before. There was also no sauce or basting once they were placed on the grill. They were so popular that every party families would make about 300 wings. I wish I learned what the recipe was.
Oh, chili lime flavored wings sounds awesome! You should totally experiment and try to remake them! It’s fun seeing how many different takes on chicken wings there are – every culture seems to have their own delicious version.