There isn’t a single moment in my life when I’m not cravingchicken wings. Even as I’m eating chicken wings, even when I’m so full after sharing a platter of glistening, saucy, spicy wings with friends, I still want more. It’s the one food I can’t get enough of, and the one I find the most fun to experiment with in my home kitchen. I’m a big fan ofoven-fried wings, but my air fryer also makes quick work of them, and my fridge door holds a whole spectrum of tangy, salty, spicy building blocks for a bespoke wing sauce.
To me, a wing sauce needs to be balanced. It can’t just be blow-your-taste-buds-out spicy—I want to actually be able to taste the sauce. At the bare minimum, I’m looking for something that’s salty, umami, and spicy, with a little sweetness too. Recently, I had a bunch of friends over to watchDrag Raceand, since I can only be friends with fellow wing fans, that was what was on the menu. As I pored over my fridge door’s offerings, I started grabbing bottles. Soy sauce and prepared wasabi paste fromsushi nightseemed like a great starting point. The soy sauce would bring both, salt, and umami to the table, and wasabi would bring sinus-clearing heat, plus some earthy, grassy flavors.
Following the sushi night train of thought, I found a tube of ginger paste (though fresh grated would absolutely work here). I’m a big fan of maple and ginger together—one of my favorite moves is warming maple syrup with a bit of ginger paste to have withpecan waffles—so I grabbed the bottle ofmaple syrupas the sweetener.
To complement the grassy flavor and nose-clearing heat of the wasabi, I reached for a tiny bottle of spicy ra-yu sesame chili oil I keep on hand for serving withramen. The nutty sesame oil would blend beautifully with the other flavors, and the chili would bring the right amount of heat to light our mouths up. I mixed everything but the wasabi paste together in a saucepan and started to reduce the sauce. Once it hit a really sticky consistency—enough to coat the back of a spoon and not bleed back together when I swiped my finger across it—I knew this sauce was going to coat my wings nicely.
I added a little butter to the mix to hold the emulsion together and boost the glossiness, and then I was in business. I stirred in the wasabi at the last minute—it’s sensitive to heat, which can nullify the component that creates that nasal burn, so it’s best to add the wasabi immediately before tossing and serving.
As much as I love a crackly-skinned wing, I prefer to avoid deep-frying in my apartment. For one, my kitchen doesn’t have a fume hood, so any amount of deep-frying will make the entire apartment smell like oil for days. But I’ve found that you can easily get a super crispy wing by baking them in the oven after coating with salt, pepper, and baking powder, thanks to a tip from J. Kenji López-Alt atSerious Eats. You can, of course, also make these in anair fryeror other countertop convection oven if you have one. I usually turn to myBreville Jouleoven any time I’m making wings, but a conventional oven works perfectly well. With my wings crisped to a golden brown, I put them in a metal mixing bowl, pour the sauce over, and toss to coat.
