Winning Wing Sauce

October 10, 2017 1:46 PM

Seeking your best wing sauce recipes for our neighborhood Wingfest. I'm looking for Sauce Only recipes, as the chicken will be cooked at the event and served with our sauces for the judges. Trendy, funny/punny, spicy, and/or weird are all welcome, but I would also love it to taste good!

I'm seriously considering adapting this Pumpkin Spice Latte Wing recipe, because I think it's funny, but I really can't tell if it will be good, so opinions on this recipe/concept are welcome as well.

posted by deadcrow to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Topical choice: a homemade version of the Rick & Morty McDonalds Szechwuan sauce?
posted by pseudostrabismus at 2:06 PM on October 10, 2017

Make the fish sauce wings they serve at Pok Pok. I don't have the recipe but I bet it's easily Google-able. They're so delicious and I bet you'll be the only person within 10 miles of that set of flavors.
posted by saladin at 3:44 PM on October 10, 2017

Here it is. Seriously, they're so, so good, and totally unique relative to the standard slate of American wing flavors.
posted by saladin at 5:31 PM on October 10, 2017

Just half butter, half Frank’s hot sauce
posted by Red Desk at 5:38 PM on October 10, 2017

I love chicken mole, so mole sauce on wings would make me happy. It has garlic, chocolate and spicy peppers. You can increase the heat, add jalapenos if you like, and can make it sweeter if you like. There are many recipes on the web.
posted by theora55 at 6:14 PM on October 10, 2017

butter and old bay.
posted by slateyness at 7:30 PM on October 10, 2017

The Pumpkin Spice Latte wing recipe you have definitely leans into the concept; the hot sauce and coffee in the wing sauce are about the only things that aren't commonly in a traditional "pumpkin spice X" recipe. I don't think it'd taste awful, per-se, but I would expect it to taste about like what you'd expect wings mixed with pumpkin spice to taste like. I doubt that the combination will transcend its components.

But hey, that might be a plus if you're really into PSLs, and I'd be curious to see how it turns out. n.n
posted by Aleyn at 9:11 PM on October 10, 2017

This is a little out there, maybe, and would require some experimentation on your part, but what struck me about that pumpkin spice latte wings recipe is that a lot of the ingredients are surprisingly close to what you'd use to make jerk chicken. Nutmeg? Cinnamon? Ginger? Brown sugar? Check, right down the line.

So what about a sort of pumpkin jerk spice wing? Instead of coffee and pumpkin, use soy sauce, lime juice, and pumpkin for the liquids; reduce the sugar; add thyme, garlic, scallion, and pureed scotch bonnets to the spice blend. Actual proportions would take some tinkering, obviously, but I feel like a slightly sweeter, slightly pumpkiny jerk sauce could be real freaking good.
posted by mishafletch at 9:56 PM on October 10, 2017

Half Garlic Butter, Half Frank's hot sauce.

Also known as Pazo's Choice wings from the Darkhorse tavern in State College PA.
posted by koolkat at 3:38 AM on October 11, 2017

Citrus-Honey wings sauce

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 to 3/4 cup honey (depends on how sweet you like it)
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Dissolve the cornstarch in some of the orange juice, gradually mix in the rest of the juices. Add the honey, minced garlic, and pepper. Simmer until thickened; taste and adjust sweetening to taste. Stir in chopped parsley.

You could tinker with this a bit by adding red pepper flakes, or a dash of soy sauce, but I like the bright fresh fruity flavor on the wings.
posted by Lunaloon at 6:22 AM on October 11, 2017

Can you get good (i.e. not so-dry-they're-brittle) dried ancho or pasilla chiles? If so:

Take a few and soak them in hot water maybe twenty minutes. Fish them out and blenderize them with lime juice, salt, and a little cinnamon and clove. Squoosh it all through a sieve to strain out the seeds and fibers. Swap that liquid in for Frank's in your standard recipe. Less sharp burn, more warm roundness and fruity hot pepper flavor.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:41 AM on October 11, 2017

Sal's Birdland, a regional chain of restaurants in Rochester and Syracuse NY, offers its own specialty wings doused with "Sal's Sassy Sauce". Flavor and texture is a nexus of buffalo hot sauce, Chinese restaurant sweet-and-sour sauce, and Thai Sweet Chili sauce. Sal's Sassy Sauce is available bottled in upstate New York, but I've never seen or experienced this flavor combo anywhere else.
posted by Ardea alba at 9:20 AM on October 11, 2017

Hot and smoky:

6-10 dried Morita chiles, soaked overnight til reconstituted.
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 stick butter (salted)
tablespoon of oregano
3 cloves of garlic

Grind the garlic and chiles, adding vinegar until it's a paste
meanwhile melt the butter on low-medium heat, stirring in the oregano
add garlic/chile paste. Gradually stir in the rest of the vinegar.
simmer for about 15 mins, stirring occasionally.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:50 PM on October 11, 2017

Sweet and spicy Korean wing sauce! I've converted SO many people to this sauce. It's kind of addictive.

1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine (or mirin)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or rice wine vinegar)
1-2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean red chili pepper paste)
3 tablespoons honey (or corn or rice syrup)
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon grated ginger
pinch pepper

Bring to a boil then simmer and stir until thickened. Toss the (cooked) wings in and stir to coat.
posted by ananci at 1:37 PM on October 12, 2017