Spicy Baked Chicken Wings Recipe, Sauce Included!

Lucky for us Americans, chicken prices haven’t inflated nearly as bad as beef. This means that we need chicken recipes that will keep things interesting at the dinner table. I give you my baked chicken wing recipe that will have you wondering whether frying is even worth the oil.

WARNING! This recipe is extra hot when it comes to spice choices, including habanero and ghost pepper. Consider yourself warned!

Dry Rub Spices:

• 2 tsp Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning
• 2 tsp lemon pepper
• 2 tsp smoked ghost pepper powder

Blend these in a bowl and coat your wings with it before baking. Shaking them in a bag or container should do the trick. This recipe is high in salt and heat, so feel free to half the amounts if you want to cut back on sodium and fire in your mouth.

Sauce Supplies:

The sauce part is optional, but for those who like a wet-n-crispy wing – the sauce is a must.

• 1 cup Jack Daniels (or Jim Beam) BBQ sauce
• 1/2 shot of whisky (preferably the same brand as the BBQ sauce you chose)
• 1 tsp habanero flakes
• 1 tsp smoked ghost pepper powder
• 2/3 cup water.
• A couple drops of liquid smoke.

Combine all of these together and slow cook them in a pot on medium-low heat for at least 20 minutes. Then set the sauce aside to cool (or on very low heat) so you can pour it on later.

Bake & Broil

Place your dry spice coated wings into the oven in a greased pan (I use Pam spray) for 1 hour at 350 degrees F. They will come out nice and crispy, ready to eat – that is unless you want to add the sauce. If you do choose to go the sauce route, make sure you save the juice at the bottom of the pan that the chicken wings were cooked in. This will be added into the pot that you cooked the sauce in for some bonus flavor that’s the secret to this recipe.

I would recommend coating them in the same bag/container you used for the dry rub (recycling). Then you will put them back into the re-greased pan. You might need to use a baster to suck out some of the excess sauce, put it back into the pot for a few minutes (10-15) on low heat for a nice reduction, which you can re-apply later as a dip or a second coating. Bake them at 400 for a good 15-25 minutes to char the sauce onto the wing (watch them them carefully during this part to make sure they don’t burn and start to smoke, hence the need for a good sauce coating) and voila, you are good to go!

Extra Crispy

Competing with double-fried crisp is hard to do, but the oven is capable of it. A low temp (350 degrees F) for about 20 extra minutes after the 400 degree baking session should crisp them up without burning them. If you don’t like a bit of char then taking it down to 325 Degrees with a few extra minutes (5-10) should do the trick. Similar to making jerky, We’re trying to evaporate the excess juices here without leaving a bunch of black carcinogens on/around the wings, (although a slight amount is unavoidable). It really depends on your oven and you should be extra wary during this process. However, after crisping them up the extra sauce you set aside will become even more appealing!