The Ultimate Smoked Buffalo Chicken Wings with Crispy Skin
How to smoke Buffalo style chicken wings and still get crispy skin.
Servings: 4 people
Cost: $30
Ingredients
For the wings:
- 12 - 18 Chicken Wings, or “Party Wings” as you’ll sometimes see them called
- Olive Oil, to coat
- Salt and pepper, to coat
The Buffalo Sauce:
- 1 cup Frank’s Red Hot hot sauce, it's gotta be Franks!
- 2 tablespoons butter
Instructions
- This success of this recipe is ALL in the technique. Well, that, and the Frank’s. But seriously pay attention to the technique!
To Smoke the Wings:
- Rinse wings in cold water and pat dry (this is a good habit to get into when cooking any kind of poultry).
- Place a drying rack over a cookie sheet and place wings on top.
- Place into a refrigerator, uncovered, for up to three hours to dehydrate. ***This is crucial to the end texture of the chicken. This process will prevent the wings steaming when you cook it, which creates a rubbery texture. We’re going for crispy here, trying to emulate the texture of fried wings.
- When ready to cook, preheat smoker to 225 degrees.
- Toss wings in a couple tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper (approx 1 tablespoon each).
- Put wings on the smoker for one hour.
- Then increase heat to 350 and let wings cook another 30 minutes. Conditions can change which can lead to more time. The key is to not pull the wings off until you get that crispy outside. You can tell by touch. Feel for the crispiness!!!
- Remove from smoker and toss immediately with sauce and favorite dipper (hubby requires blue cheese, but I’m a ranch fan).
For the Buffalo Sauce: (prep sauce just before the wings come off the smoker)
- Bring butter and sauce to simmer (not boil!) and remove from heat. Place into a bowl. *see notes
Notes
As I mentioned above, we’ve made these perfect on several occasions. We’ve also made every mistake you could make when it comes to cooking wings, so read these tips before you make this.
The first, most important step, is cleaning, patting dry, and then dehydrating your wings in the fridge. If you don’t do this you run the risk of your wings steaming in the smoker, creating a rubbery skin. Who wants wings with rubbery skin?! I see very few recipes recommend this, and you know what? Those recipes result in rubbery skin. Gross.
If, when they are fully cooked, you don’t see a nice char or crispy outside, feel free to adjust the temperature on your smoker. I like to jack up the heat for a few minutes to give them a burst of heat helping to create a crispy outside.
The sauce. Watch the temperature you melt the butter at. Slowly simmer this and don’t melt at a high heat. We’ve made this mistake before. If you melt the butter at too high a heat, and then add the Frank’s, the result is oily and the Frank’s does not integrate with the sauce. Instead the hot sauce separates from the butter. It’s a sad oily mess, and the sauce doesn’t stick to the chicken. No bueno.
Nutrition
Calories: 805kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 66g | Fat: 58g | Saturated Fat: 16g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 12g | Monounsaturated Fat: 23g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 278mg | Sodium: 2111mg | Potassium: 572mg | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 542IU | Vitamin C: 3mg | Calcium: 52mg | Iron: 3mg