What is up you guys? It's Susie from HeyGrillHey.com and
today, I'm showing you my go-to method for grilled chicken
wings with a homemade honey barbecue sauce. I bet it is
just as fast as heating up those store-bought frozen wings
and it taste a million times better. You guys are going to
love this one. I think your kids probably are too. So,
let's get started.
I'm
First up, we need to make our honey barbecue sauce. I have
the full recipe on my website and on the Hey Grill Hay app
but it is a classic and it's one that I come back to over
and over and over again because everybody that tries it loves
it and it's kind of a throwback to I think when I was a kid so
it's got a little bit of nostalgia in there but the
taste is far superior. So, we're going to start by
combining all of our ingredients in a sauce pan and
then bring it up to a simmer for 15 minutes. You need a cup
of ketchup and I know some people well it's not a from
scratch sauce if you're starting with ketchup I never
said this was a from scratch sauce it's kind of a semi semi
homemade mock up but I still think it's a homemade sauce you
need 1/ 2 a cup of dark brown sugar a quarter cup of apple
cider vinegar, two tablespoons of honey. Now, this sauce and
most barbecue sauces are better if they sit overnight because
it tones down some of the acidity and ties everything
together. So, if you are making this sauce same day, you don't
have time for it to sit overnight. I would actually do
three tablespoons of honey. That little extra sweetness
helps fight some of the acidity that you lose as the sauce sits
overnight. We're also going to need a teaspoon of salt and a
teaspoon each of our seasonings. This is garlic
powder, onion powder, and smoked paprika. And then
finally, a half a teaspoon of black pepper. Like I said, pop
this guy over medium heat, bring it up to just a simmer,
and let all of the seasonings and the sweetness and the
ketchup simmer together for 15 minutes.
While our sauce is simmering away behind us, let's get
started on our chicken wings. These guys are about four
pounds of drumettes and flats that have already been
separated. I did pat them dry with a paper towel and now we
need to season them and get them ready for high-heat
grilling. We've got the grill preheating to about 425, 450
degrees. These cook hot and they cook best. We're going to
have some really nice crispy edges from the skin and we want
to enhance that as as possible both for flavor and for texture
and the best way to do that is to coat the outside of our
chicken wings in a really nice, high-heat cooking oil. I'm
using avocado oil. It's my favorite but a nice spray
canola oil works well too.
Once we've got them nice and glisteny with our spray, we're
simply going to season with salt and pepper. We're really
going to let the sauce do a lot of the talking when it comes to
the flavor profiles at the end so salt and pepper is a really
great base. Additionally, I want to skip using any type of
seasoning that has sugar in it because we're cooking so hot
and so fast. The sugars can burn really quickly on the
grill before the chickens cooked all the way through.
Then, once they're nice and seasoned on one side, flip 'em
over, repeat on the backside with your oil, salt, and
pepper.
Beautiful. These guys are ready to hit the grill. We're
going to put them directly on our preheated grill grates.
Close the lid. They're going to take about 15 to 20 minutes to
cook. By then, our sauce should be absolutely all the way done
and we're going to be flipping our chicken wings every three
to five minutes just to make sure that they cook evenly.
They don't burn anywhere and we can rotate them around as
needed if there are hot spots on our grill.
Our chicken wings are cooking away. We've already flipped
them once. Our sauce has been simmering for the last 10 to 15
minutes. It looks beautiful and ready to go. I'm going to pour
some of it into a bowl for dipping when we're done and the
rest of it, I'm going to keep warm because we're going to use
that to baste the chicken wings right near the end of the
cooking process. We've hit the 165 degree temperature point in
our grilled chicken wings journey. That means it's time
to baste with our honey barbecue sauce. Let that sauce
tighten and char on the outside of our wings for the last few
minutes of cooking and then it's time to eat them.
After saucing, you really want to give these just a quick
minute or two per side. We don't want to burn the sugars
in the sauce but we do want to dance that line between
caramelized and burnt because there's a lot of really great
flavor that happens in the char. These guys are clocking
in right around 175, which means it's time for them to
come off. If some of the thicker ones are a little bit
under 175, you can leave them on for an additional minute. A
lot of times these flats will finish a minute or two before
the drums, that's totally fine. So, Alright, our grilled
chicken wings are done with the sticky, sweet, delicious honey
barbecue sauce on the outside and I think we're going to have
a perfect contrast in textures here. We're going to have
juicy, fall off the bone, incredibly tender chicken wings
with a nice, crispy, crunchy, sweet coating on the outside.
Now, I'm a flat person. I know some people are drum people.
That's totally fine. We've got the sauce on the side for extra
dipping and quick cleaning tip, anytime you're grilling
anything sticky or sweet that leaves a residue on your grill,
leave your grill on for a couple minutes after you're
finished grilling. Let it really char everything on
there. It makes it much easier to brush it all off instead of
trying to brush sticky stuck on debris. Okay, can I eat it now?
Okay, great. Did you hear that?
These are crowd pleasing chicken wings if you like spice
you can totally baste in buffalo sauce instead of
barbecue sauce and have the same delightful result but
having Oh my gosh. It's a road runner. You want to wonder that
he would like a chicken wing, please? Yeah. I told you they
were crowd pleaser. Okay. That was awesome. Sorry, bud.
Anyway, I just think there's something magical about a
sugary sauce on the outside of a grilled wing. The way that it
caramelizes, the way that it chars. There's just really
nothing like it in terms of flavor. You guys are going to
love this one. It's so simple. I hope that you make this
recipe at home. I hope that these simple techniques help
you make better barbecue so you can feed the people you love
and become a backyard barbecue hero. As always, the recipes
are available on my website or on the Hey Grill Hey that you
can download for free over 450 barbecue and grilling recipes
just for you. We'll see you guys next time.