Wife has asked me to serve buffalo wings for a group of 10 for the game on sunday.

I've got a propane cooker / turkey fryer that I've never even used.

General consensus - deep fried wings, restaurant style? or, oven baked?

Cooking technique for either/both welcomed if you've got them!

I'm a big fan of smoke and fry. Salt/ sugar brine, light dusting of seasoning (careful with salt after a brine), then flash fry them to crisp up the skin and finish cooking. Skip the "buffalo" sauce and make one with your favorite Louisiana hot sauce, butter and whatever else you want to add to it!

Definitely a 2 stage cook for that many people, oven/smoker/sous vide/what ever. Cook them Saturday and refrigerate. Fry for service and have some variety of pre-made sauce/dry rubs.

I'm a big fan of cooking them on the traeger. I lightly salt them and put them on a cookie rack+sheet pan in the fridge for a few hours to let the skin dry out. Grill them as hot as the grill can get until skin gets crispy.

My sauce usually consists of a few cloves of garlic finely minced and sauted in butter(about 4tbsp). Toss in some cayenne/chipotle and then mix in franks(probably 1/2 to 3/4 cup). Sometimes I'll make some extra garlic butter and toss some wings in that, then liberally apply fiesta brand lemon pepper seasoning. Always a good meal!

Smoked wings are always the way to go.

I think the smoked/fried wings is the one I'm going after.

No Traeger in my backyard, but I'll fire up my BGE.
How long/what temp do you smoke at before you toss in a deep fry to crisp them up?

Yeah, I can look on Pinterest. But, I'd rather get the correct answers here instead of scrolling through ads there.

I've done them hot and fast and low and slow and never noticed much of a difference. Probably 225 or so until they hit 155-160. Take them up to 175 or so in the fryer. I do like to use the whole jointed wing if you can find them for smoking.

Edit: I haven't tried it but you could also smoke them to 170 then flash fry just long enough to crisp up the skin. I have some time today, I may try both methods and report back

If you don't want to fry you can get decent results in the oven, especially if you have convection. You'd want to season the day before with salt and some baking power and let it air dry on a wire rack in the fridge overnight.

I've done small batches in a pressure cooker. You dredge them in cornstarch, steam them in a pressure cooker, chill, and then flash fry them. But that would be a crazy amount of work for 10 people.

Smoke and then just quickly pan heat a hot and sticky sauce. Don't need to deep fry.

Don't need a deep fryer?

That's what my wife said, too! But, here I am, with a deep fryer :-)

Costco is losing my business, so I'm heading to Sam's Club this evening to look for some non-frozen wings/drumsticks....

I have cooked several batches of wings on my Pit Boss and I have been very happy with the results.

About 1 to 4 hours before cooking, I put them on a wire rack in a half size sheet pan, and season with salt and pepper, or whatever dry rub I decide to use, and place in the fridge. Get the grill up to temp and put the wings on, I usually start at 250 for the first 30 minutes to get a little smoke on them. After 30 minutes, bump the temp to 325, flipping every 5-10 minutes depending on how they are looking. Sometimes I have had to bump the temp up to 375 for about 15 minutes at the end to get the skin to crisp up. I think that was due to the fact that I didn't get the skin dry enough before putting them on the grill.

You won't have enough time to get the ingredients, but the Meat Church pear burner wings are the best home cooked wings I've ever had.

Dust with corn starch when seasoning with preferred spice blend before you put on the smoker or pellet grill. The starch draws out the moisture from the skin and gives a slight breading and crispy texture. It also allows for adhesion of the sauce. This method gives the smoke flavor and the fried texture in one step.

Super Bowl Sunday giveth, and taketh away….
Food poisoning struck last night, so I'll be eating crackers this evening instead of the wings. But, I'm trying ALL of these recipes next week !!
I guess the positive is that instead of packing it on, I'll show up to the office e down about 7lbs?

chasep2820 said:

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Dust with corn starch when seasoning with preferred spice blend before you put on the smoker or pellet grill. The starch draws out the moisture from the skin and gives a slight breading and crispy texture. It also allows for adhesion of the sauce. This method gives the smoke flavor and the fried texture in one step.

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I've always used baking powder instead of corn starch. Anyone know if there is much of a difference between the two?