Easy Classic Buffalo Wings Recipe

If you're new to making Buffalo chicken wings at home, you might be surprised by the simple ingredient list. To start, you'll need wingettes and drumettes. If you're at the supermarket and you only see whole wings, don't worry. It's incredibly easy to break them down at home. Just cut at the joints between the drumette, wingette (or flat), and wing tip, wiggling your knife if you feel resistance to find the right areas to slice. Discard the wing tips (or save for a batch of chicken stock), and you'll have perfect wingettes and drumettes ready to go.

The pieces are coated in a combination of baking powder, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper for a flavorful mix, with the baking powder helping to crisp and brown the skin more quickly in the oven. After baking, they're tossed in a balanced mixture of melted butter, hot sauce, and brown sugar.

Buffalo wings should be served hot, and a homemade blue cheese dip is the perfect pairing. Blue cheese crumbles, sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, and pepper come together for a creamy dip that cools the heat of the wings. The dip can be garnished with sliced scallions, and celery or carrot sticks can be served alongside if desired.

Shake off any excess coating and transfer to the prepared baking sheet, spacing chicken pieces at least ½ inch apart.

In the meantime, prepare the blue cheese dip: In a medium bowl, lightly crush blue cheese crumbles with a fork to break down any large pieces.

When the chicken is ready, transfer a few pieces at a time into the hot sauce mixture, tossing to coat.

A perfectly cooked chicken wing should be moist and tender on the inside, but crisp and deeply browned on the exterior. When baking chicken wings, you'll want to keep an eye on their color as they bake. Baked on a middle rack in the oven, they should be golden brown on both sides by the time they're finished baking (you'll be flipping them halfway through). A rack placed over the baking sheet can help with this, leading to even better air flow around the wings and an extra crispy skin as they bake, albeit a little extra cleanup. The finished wings should be firm to the touch, and the skin crisp. When you cut into a wing, the juices should run clear.

Keeping a meat thermometer on hand is an easy way to always know without a doubt that your chicken is fully cooked. A probe inserted into the thickest part of a wing should register 165 F. If the temperature is lower, leave them in for additional time. 

When you think of crisp chicken wings, you might assume they have to be fried. While frying is one way to ensure crispy wings, this oven method also yields extra crispy results. Baking powder coats the chicken before baking, helping ensure that the skin gets nice and crispy in the oven. If you have the time, try coating and leaving the chicken uncovered in the refrigerator overnight for even more of a crisp, blistering effect when baked. 

These oven-baked wings can even be baked in advance, and reheated until hot throughout when needed. When it comes time to serve, toss into the hot sauce mixture right before plating. While the wings will remain crisp until they're gobbled up, the more time the sauce sits on the chicken, the more likely the rich, silky sauce will soften the crispy skin, leading to a soggy result.