So after the Super Bowl we had a major hankerin for wings. We love wings but we don’t love the gut busting punch they pack. Our favorite wing joint’s wings pack a wopping 1000 calorie punch (before we count the sides). Ouch – my gut! So we decided to do a wing battle because we have never turned down a competition. We knew we would be baking them so I thought up an asian style sauce and the husband…freestyled it as is his personality. I like to be precise and know how much of every ingredient I put in a recipe so that I can recreate it whereas he is fine thinking up a recipe and hoping it works out. So the Asian sauce is exact the spicy wings…”ehh you’ll be ok”

Asian Wings:

Chinese 5 spice
2 T hoisin sauce (sweet bean paste works too)
1 T low sodium soy sauce
2 t light brown sugar
green onion and sesame seeds

Spicy Wings:

1 T paprika
salt and pepper
1 T garlic powder
1 T rice wine vinegar
1/4c scotch bonnet pepper sauce
2 T honey mustard

We split a pack of HEB wings which had exactly 16 wings sections and each wing section yields a “drum stick” and a “flapper”.

(left) flapper (middle) tip (right) drum stick

I had the hubs butcher the wing sections into 3 pieces – he looks for any opportunity to use his cleaver (keep the tips in a tupperware container in the freezer for stock). Feel for the “knuckle” so its easier to split the pieces.

Chopy Chopy

For the Asian wings:
Toss the wing sections (patted dry of course) with about 1T of Chinese 5 spice – they don’t need to be completely coated, a little goes a long way.

Asian wings spiced

Place the wings in a baking dish and cook for 10 minutes. Use the side sauce of the soy, hoisin and sugar and sauce them (don’t over sauce them because it will burn) and flip the wings over and sauce the other side.

mmmm bbq wings

Bake for another 15 minutes. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and let them bake for another 3 minutes. Take the wings out of the oven and let them cool slightly, they are finger food after all unless you don’t really care about keeping your fingerprints.Sprinkle with the green onion.

For the spicy wings:
Combine the paprika, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Toss the wing pieces in the dry mixture and place the wings in a baking dish.

spicy wings seasoned

Bake them for 10 minutes. Combine the vinegar, pepper sauce and mustard and sauce each side of the wings. Bake for another 15 minutes until golden brown. Take the wings out of the oven and sauce on last time. Let them cool.

Done!

We served our wings with a salad, celery and a small side of ranch. They were all very satisfying and the cinnamon in the Asian wings really was delicious with the sauce. The spicy wings were sweet in the beginning but definitely let you know there was some spice afterwords.

Voila!!

We have a lot of spices and condiments in our pantry/fridge so the cost for this meal was really low which is always a plus. Our total grocery bill (all we had to buy was celery, chicken, ranch dressing and green onion) was $12.08 and a serving of 8 pieces yields 4 servings from the whole recipe which makes each serving cost $3.02 – yay! Also, the average nutritional value per serving was 350 calories, 20 g of fat, 27 g of protein. Until the next football season we will keep working on our recipes but keep these in mind – so delicious!