Here’s another cooking interlude from the Atlanta Pizza Days. I didn’t want to wait too long to create this post surrounding one of my favorite annual events, The Super Bowl.
Besides being an overall football fan, I’m particularly fond of any get together where greasy food and beer is not just accepted, but heavily endorsed!
Aaron and I decided that making our own hot wings and sauces would be an awesome choice for this year. I love hot wings, I haven’t cooked my own in a while, and Aaron fancies himself a saucier so it was really the logical choice. I picked up a big bag from Costco (10lbs for $18), did some quick research for sauce inspiration, then got busy creating the sauces.
Sauce Summary
- Hot Teriyaki – Sambal oelek, soy sauce, sesame oil, dijon mustard, sugar, and fresh ginger
- BBQ Sauce – A cooked sauce of tomatoes, mustard, cayenne, worcester, garlic, brown sugar, vinegar, onions.
- Sriracha Garlic – Minced garlic sautéed in butter, sriracha, paprika, rice vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce
- Buffalo Ranch – Butter, Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, cider vinegar, ranch dressing powder
- Mustard – Dijon mustard, yellow mustard, honey, cider vinegar, Frank’s red hot sauce
I don’t have exact proportions for these sauces, particularly for the Hot Teriyaki and BBQ, because those were Aaron’s. For the latter three sauces, the butter to hot sauce ratio is 1 to 1 with a dash of the other ingredients. The mustard sauce I found directly on the web here.
With the sauces on hand, we got to frying. We filled a pot with canola oil, heated it to almost 350 then started frying the wings 10-12 at a time.
The wings we used were flash frozen so they had a glaze on them. We had to be careful putting them in because the oil reacted to the water in the glaze and the pot would sound like a jet engine for a few seconds and it would bubble up & steam until the water was released. Adding 2-3 at a time and waiting a few seconds before you add the next few is your best bet. You can also defrost the wings and this problem (and cooking time) will be reduced.
A fry guard is a good investment for this process.
Adding 12 hot wings to the pot at 350 often reduced the oil temperature by almost 100 degrees, so sometimes I turned up the heat until I got back to my desired temperature, but be sure to turn it back down so you don’t burn the next batch. When maintaining 350, I was eventually able to cook 12 wings in about 10 minutes. I like wings very crispy so sometimes when there were large peices I would leave them in there another 2-4 minutes.
When each batch was done we took them out, put them on a paper towel lined plate, then transferred them to the tossing bowl. They sat in the sauce for a couple of minutes to soak.
Then we transferred the wings to a lined platter, with separate sections for each flavor.
The 10lb bag of wings probably yielded up to 80 wings. It’s hard to be sure because we probably ate 20 wings (or more) during the cooking process. You gotta taste test, right?
Pictured above, 1 hour in, we’ve eaten as many as we’ve cooked
Cooking this many wings, 10-14 at a time took about 2 hours.
Three sets of wings/sauces pictured above, the other two were on different plates
By the time we were done it was pretty much time to head over to the party. The wings went over well – they were attacked upon entry and all the wings were eaten eventually eaten. The flavors were a bit different than the norm, but I heard quite a few positive comments and we received a number of questions about the sauce ingredients. Aaron’s Hot Teriyaki was the favorite (and my favorite) with the sriracha garlic coming in second. The Hot Teriyaki had slight heat, a great sticky texture, and a salty/sweet flavor combo going on that was killer. The sriracha garlic was a bit spicier, and the garlic flavor really shone through, with the slightest of edge coming from the fish sauce. I highly recommend giving these sauces a try. The buffalo ranch was definitely good, but not a standout, and the mustard and BBQ were just average to me.
Eating 30 wings isn’t something you should do all the time, but if you’re gonna have them, try making them yourself. Being able to create your own sauces is fun, the wings are much less expensive this way, and you can ensure you get the level of doneness that you prefer.
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