Lighten Up...

[A_Lurker]

So, I was looking at recipes earlier in the week and found something that looked promising for making homemade baked wings that are (hopefully) close to fried.  I'm not a huge wing fan but sometimes it's nice to make a lighter version of something.  I do this because I choose not to eliminate any food, just find a way to work it in.  So, tonight...

Crispy Baked Chicken Wings

3 pounds chicken wings (or drumettes)

1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoons pepper

2 tablespoons baking powder

hot sauce (Bottled Cayenne)

butter (not margarine)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Rinse chicken wings and trim any excess skin. Do not remove the skin or you will lose the crispiness. Pat chicken dry.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour and seasonings. Add chicken and coat with the flour mixture.
4. Prepare a large cookie sheet by covering with foil and spraying with cooking spray.
5. Arrange chicken on the cookie sheet, at least an inch apart.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes, turning once after about 20 minutes.
7. While the chicken is cooking, make the sauce. Add about a ½ cup of the bottled sauce and a stick of butter to a small saucepan. Heat on low and stir until butter is melted and sauce begins to bubble. Taste. If the sauce needs more heat go ahead and add some in batches, or add a few dashes of Tabasco.
8. Pour the sauce over the crispy baked chicken wings and toss to coat.
9. Serve with celery and carrot sticks and a side of ranch or blue cheese dressing.

Okay, so my comments.  I made about 1/2 lb of wings.  I cut the flour coating mix down and just used a couple of tsp of Frank's spice.  Not on purpose, but I had cut the wings up earlier so they were fairly dry to start with.  I'm not sure if this will be different the next time, but it used almost none of the coating mix up.  Next time I'm going to weigh the coating mix before and after use but I figure I added 15 calories of flour and baking powder to the 1/2 pound of wings.  At this point I did cheat a little and used a couple of Tb of this - https://www.franksredhot.com/products/buffalo-wings-sauce instead of mixing up the butter and hot sauce mix. 

They were actually pretty good.  I've made baked wings before but they lacked something.  The light dusting of flour/baking powder with the spice was pretty decent.  I can't give a calorie comparison as I'm not sure I believe any of the online calorie counts for fried & traditionally sauced wings (ie. I'm seeing calorie counts that are lower than raw chicken.  I saw one where fried wings were lower in calories than baked)

Mine: 15 cals of coating + 432 cals for 8oz raw chicken wings

Sauce: 0 cals for 1Tb

There was definitely oil left in the cooking pan, but I also used 2Tb of sauce.  So if I were logging I'd have just logged the 447 for the 1/2 lb of wings.

[WendyB]

This looks good. I just cant find Franks Sauce and do not know what is compareable.

I use a lot of Drizzlemeskinny.com Recipes and she uses a lot of franks sauce.

Guess I need to buy on amazon to figure out what it is.

[A_Lurker]

@WendyB- the wing sauce sold here has the regular Frank's sauce with some butter flavour.  Normally you adjust the heat using partial Frank's and partial butter (the more butter the milder it is).  For recipes that call for Frank's hot sauce (in small amounts) you could probably substitute any hot sauce.  In the past I've made my own hot sauce.  Franks is simply a blend of: Aged Cayenne Red Peppers, Distilled Vinegar, Water, Salt And Garlic Powder.

[WendyB]

Thanks Anne. I will look at some labels to see what comes close to it.

[betpchem]

I love Frank's hot sauce. According to the bottle I have in my fridge, it contains cayene red pepper, vinegar, water, salt and garlic powder. The serving size is 1 tsp, and that 1 tsp has no calories. The only other information the bottle gives is that it contains 200 mg of sodium per serving size.

I'm with you @A_Lurker. I do not eliminate food, just try to eat less of it or make it lighter. I think eliminating food just makes you want it more.

[WendyB]

I found it at Walmart. I hate Walmart LOL

So I bought 2 bottles

Found a list of other stores as well. Dont know why mine doesnt carry it

[A_Lurker]

@WendyB- I'm not a fan either.

If you bought the straight up sauce you need to cut it with a little butter before tossing it on wings.  The one I'm using has 'butter flavor' in it.  I don't normally buy such things but there's enough fat in chicken wings that it seemed prudent.  Although in the end I only sauced it with a couple of Tb of the sauce so I could probably have gone with the straight sauce and a small amount of butter.