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Ever since I was a very young kid I enjoyed spicy food. I remember sitting at the table with my dad and brother over a Styrofoam container of wicked hot wings from the local pub. With our faces bright red, our noses running and sweat accumulating on our foreheads, we chowed until our lips burned like a wildfire.
Many years later, my love for all things spicy has not been tamed one bit. In fact, my condiment of choice is Sriracha, I’ll pretty much squirt it on anything that doesn’t contain sugar.
Since it’s Super Bowl week, I thought this would be the perfect time to share my favorite recipe for sweet and spicy chicken wings. You can definitely control the level of heat by simply backing off a bit of the cayenne and Sriracha. The honey adds amazing glaze factor that sends these wings over the edge! Serve these Sweet and Spice Chicken Wings with some homemade blue cheese or ranch dressing and a side of celery sticks and you’ll be all set for game night!
Sweet and Spicy Chicken Wings
Ingredients:
- 3 pounds chicken wings and drums
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1 cup honey, divided
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot
- 2 teaspoons Sriracha
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large jellyroll or broiler pan with foil and place a metal rack on top of the foil. Spray rack with nonstick cooking spray.
- Rinse the wings in cold water and pat dry with paper towels.
- Arrange wings on metal rack and season with pepper.
- Place wings in oven and set timer for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, remove the wings from the oven and brush the wings with ½ cup honey. Be sure to glaze both side of the wings, using metal tongs to turn.
- Place wings back into the oven, set the timer for 30 minutes, and prepare the sauce.
- In a medium bowl, combine melted butter, remaining 1/2 cup of honey, Frank’s Red Hot, Sriracha, cayenne, and garlic powder; whisk to combine.
- While the wings are baking, periodically baste both sides of the wings with the sauce (about every ten minutes). Once the timer goes off, crank the heat up to 400 degrees F and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
Notes:
- Lining your pan with foil will save you a lot of work, trust me, you don’t want to skip this step. Baked honey and a pan equals a hot mess!
- Control the level of heat by increasing or decreasing the amount of amount of cayenne and Sriracha.
- Things may get a little smoky during the last 15 minutes of cooking, so be sure to turn your ventilation system on.
- Sriracha is typically found in the ethnic aisle of the grocery store.
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Made these tonight. They were so good but next time I’ll add more sriracha. I love spicy but the sweet is also good.
Thanks so much for stopping by, Laura! I appreciate you taking the time to comment. Happy Baking!
-Jamie
Made these yesterday. We smoked the wings first and then tossed in the sauce and broiled. So unbelievably delicious. Only change I made was to sub brown sugar for honey. That sauce was the perfect blend of sweet and savory. I will never put anything else on wings. Thank you!
You’re very welcome, Barbara! I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
Do they come out crispy? I like my wings crispy. These look great thanks for sharing with all of us.
YES! I hate non-crispy wings! :) Thanks for stopping by.
-Jamie
Made these tonight for football, delicious. They were a great balance of sweet and spicy, definitely will be making these again.
Chrisie-
I’m glad you tried them and liked them. Thanks so much for stopping by.
-Jamie
I’m dying to try this…..but afraid it’s to hot…..I love sweet and spicy, but having a get together and some don’t like it hot. can you give me an idea on the scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the hotest, how hot these are. i think she can take some heat but not tons of it. thanks, Carol
Carol-
You can adjust the heat by adding a little less cayenne and Sriracha. I hope this helps.
-Jamie