Crispy oven-baked buffalo chicken wings with homemade blue cheese dressing, a healthier alternative to the classic deep fried wings. While not as crispy they are surely not as oily.
Oven baked Buffalo Chicken Wings
Ingredients
The Wings
- 1 kg (2lb) chicken wings cut into drumettes and flats
- 10g (1%) salt
- 20g (2%) baking powder
- 10g (1%) corn starch
Buffalo Sauce
- 40 ml (15oz) Frank's Red Hot
- 40g (3 tbsp) unsalted butter
- 2 cloves of garlic grated / minced
Blue Cheese Dressing
- 85 grams (3/4 cup) Greek yogurt
- 85 grams (3/4 cup) Mayo
- 50-100ml (1.7-3.2 oz.) milk / buttermilk add based on how thick you want your dressing
- 3 cloves of garlic grated / minced
- 1 tsp yellow mustard
- 1 tsp sugar / sweetener equivalent
- 50 grams (2 oz) blue cheese
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Instructions
Cooking the Wings
- Start by mixing together in a bowl the salt, corn starch and baking powder
- Place the wings in a bowl and sprinkle them with all the cornstarch mixture, stir for even coating
- Take a pan, place in it a wire rack so that the wings are elevated. Put in the pan all the wings evenly spaced. Place it in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours, or ideally as long as 24 hours.This is an important step as it pulls out the moisture from the wings and makes them dryer which will increase the crispy factor when cooking.
- When ready to cook, take the wings out of the fridge and preheat your oven at 230°C (450°F) for convection or 250°C (480°F) for regular. Once preheated you can put the wings in the oven, set a timer for 20min, once that time goes off, rotate the wings and place them for an additional 20-30min or until golden crispy
- While they're cooking you can prepare the buffalo sauce and the blue cheese dressing.
Buffalo Sauce
- Add the butter in a cold sauce pan and place it on low heat
- Grate the cloves of garlic and keep the butter moving until it's all melted
- As soon as butter starts to bubble add the hot sauce and turn off the heat, whisk it until it all comes together
- Once the wings are done, place them in a heat-resistant bowl, add the sauce on top of them and toss them to coat them all over.
- Serve them with a side of carrots and celery and a portion of the blue cheese dressing.
Blue Cheese Dressing
- For best results start by placing the blue cheese in the freezer 1 hour in advance to making the sauce. This will allow you to grate it so that it will be incorporated easier.
- In a bowl add the yogurt, mayo, mustard, sugar and milk then grate in the garlic. Mix everything up and then we're ready to add the blue cheese.
- Take the blue cheese out of the freezer and use a grater to add it in, grate about 30% of the cheese, stir it in and then grate again. Repeat this until all the cheese is incorporated. Then you could serve it right away but I like to let it sit in the fridge for at least 30min so that the blue cheese flavor gets infused into the dressing.
These are made by using a bit of science by making use of the properties of baking powder along with a drying phase before actually putting them in the oven. This makes it a lot easier to cook and less of a hassle then it is to use a deep-frying method.
While I wanted these buffalo chicken wings to be healthier I couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice the flavor of the classic buffalo wings sauce by reducing the butter so that part remains the same: melted butter with Frank’s Red hot in equal quantities – delicious!
And since you can’t serve buffalo wings without the dangerously delicious blue cheese dressing we’re also going to be making one from scratch.
Did you make this recipe?
I’d love to hear how it turned out! Leave a comment below, or tag me with @solozaurcooking on Instagram and hashtag it #solozaurcookin.