Although we had big crowds of folks in our house for the NFL playoff games this season, Super Bowl Sunday was a calm evening without company—something Joey and I were both very much in the mood for after a few busy weeks in a row.
Despite the lack of a table full of food, I still decided to make a traditional football snack for the big game: buffalo wings.
Buffalo wings are one of Joey’s favorite foods, and we’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to figure out how to make some at home that are crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside and aren’t the product of lots of deep frying.
In all our attempts, we generally only attained one or two of those criteria, but I finally figured it out this past weekend, thanks to a blog post by “The Cookful.” You can find it at https://thecookful.com/bake-chicken-wings-crispy/. I will warn you that it takes a good amount of time in the oven to accomplish this, but it is mostly hands-off time, and it’s well worth the wait.
Crispy Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- 20 wing pieces
- 1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- sauce or dry rub
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
- Line two rimmed baking sheets with foil and place a rack onto the sheet (I just used my cooling racks).
- Place the wing pieces into a bowl and dump in the baking powder and salt. Mix them with your hands to distribute the powder and salt. (Don’t expect them to look like they’ve been dipped in flour; you won’t be able to see the coating on the wings when you’re done.)
- Place the wing pieces in a single layer on the rack, spacing them just slightly. Cook them for 30 minutes.
- Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees, and cook for another 45 to 50 minutes or until the wings are brown and crispy.
- Let them rest for a couple minutes, and then toss them in your favorite wing sauce or dry rub and serve immediately.
My favorite way to coat wings is to put them in a bowl with a lid along with the sauce and then just shake them until they’re coated. I’m not coordinated enough to do it without a lid—unless I want to clean sauce off every inch of my kitchen.
These wings were awesome—exactly what we’d been looking for. It was also nice that any fat dripped down onto the foil, and the wings weren’t swimming in it while they cooked.
I’m not sure what the secret of the baking powder is that makes the wings cook so well, but it was just what I was missing in previous attempts.
They also received the Joey stamp of approval, which is a pretty big deal. He has pretty high standards for what makes for a good wing.
Our Super Bowl snack was awesome. The game, on the other hand, well…maybe it could have used some baking powder.
This piece first appeared in print on Feb. 7, 2019.
Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.
