Crispy Asian Baked Chicken Wings

Have I told you yet how much I love classic pub food? Burgers, fries, nachos, chicken wings. I love them all. As with most extremely tasty foods, these items are high in fat and low in nutritional value (figures). When I recreate these dishes at home, I try to lessen the calories as much as possible: with burgers I use lean meat, for fries I bake off sweet potatoes, but baked chicken wings? The two best things about eating chicken wings are (a) the sauce, and (b) the crunch. This recipe had a delicious sounding, zingy Asian sauce, but would the wings be crispy?

I was definitely skeptical, but these wings pleasantly surprised me. I might even prefer them to the fried variety! And hello, how gorgeous did they come out?

What you’ll need:

Directions
Preheat your oven to 400 F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

If you’re smart, you’ll buy chicken wings that have already been trimmed and prepared by the butcher. If you’re me, you’ll say, “Oh, no problem. I’m a fancy cook now at a fancy restaurant and can buy the drumsticks and wingettes with the tip attached and just separate them myself.”

Then, if you’re me, you’ll start screaming like a baby in your own kitchen because there are still a few feathers attached to the wings and you don’t like plucking feathers from animals.

Then, you’ll call out to your significant other who actually works in finance and has no real connection to cooking in a professional kitchen so he can (a) remove all the feathers from the nice little birdies, and (b) separate the tip from the rest of the wings because you don’t like the sound it makes when you jam your knife between the two joints to remove the tip.

Hi, my name is Ari and I’m a big baby who needs to toughen up. (In my defense, I successfully cleaned 10 lbs of squid last week, and that ain’t no pretty sight.)

Anyway, while you’re walking through your local Fairway, Publix, Stop n’ Shop, wherever – make sure you get your wings separated. It’ll make life that much easier.

In a large bowl, whisk together the salt, pepper, chile garlic sauce, and garlic powder. If you’re unfamiliar with chile garlic sauce, it can be found in the Asian aisle of most supermarkets, and yes, it’s really, really hot. A little goes a long way.

Add the chicken drumettes and wingettes to the mixture and toss to combine. (You could also do this in a large Ziploc bag if you want.) Add one cup of flour and the curry powder, shake to coat the chicken evenly, then place onto your lined baking sheet.

Spray the chicken wings with cooking oil spray, then pop ‘em in your oven for 30 minutes. Turn the chicken over, spray with more cooking oil, and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes.

Here’s what they should look like:

While the chicken is cooking, grab all your ingredients for the sauce. Combine the rice vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, orange zest, soy sauce, and chili garlic sauce in a medium saucepan. Place over medium high heat, bring to a boil, then simmer for a minute or two. Add the cornstarch mixture, whisk, and set aside.

When your wings are finished, remove from the baking sheet and place in a large bowl. (You might have to do this in multiple batches if you purchased a lot of wings.) Toss with a few tablespoons of the sauce, then sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds on top.

We decided to serve this with a quick Asian slaw. Most grocery stores sell prepackaged slaw mixtures (just various types of cabbage combined). To this we added some soy sauce, garlic, ginger, rice vinegar… a lot of the same ingredients in the chicken sauce, minus any real heat. The slaw was supposed to cool us down in case the wings were too spicy, which they weren’t. In fact, they were the perfect heat level.

I tried to control myself and only plated four wings, but I could’ve easily eaten another four… or ten.

Next time you feel the urge to be bad, resist the greasy chicken wings from your favorite pub and make these instead. They are so delicious, so crispy, and so need to be a part of your repertoire.

If you have a favorite chicken wing sauce, post the recipe below so I can try it next time I bake wings. Enjoy!