Proper Buffalo Wings (Crispy, Saucy, Australian-Made Heat)
Buffalo wings have two non-negotiables: skin that crackles, and a sauce that clings. Most home wings fail the first one because nobody wants a pot of frying oil on the stove. Fair enough. The oven does it better anyway — one pantry trick and a very hot shelf.
The sauce side is already solved. Keating & Co’s buffalo hot sauce is Australian-made and lands exactly where buffalo should: real heat, big vinegar tang, and enough body to coat every ridge of crisp skin once it’s whisked into melted butter. There’s a honey-buffalo variation below for the sweet-heat faction, and we suggest making both.
What you need
- 1.2 kg chicken wings, split into drumettes and flats
- 1 tbsp baking powder (not baking soda — this is the crisping trick)
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 100 ml Keating & Co buffalo hot sauce
- 60 g butter
- 1 tbsp Hunnie raw WA honey (optional, for honey-buffalo)
- Celery sticks and a cool, creamy dip, to serve
Method
- Pat the wings very dry with paper towel. Dry skin is crispy skin; this step matters more than any other.
- Toss the wings with the baking powder and salt, then lay them out on a rack set over a lined tray so the heat reaches all sides.
- Roast at 220 °C for 45–50 minutes, turning once, until deep gold and audibly crisp.
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan, take it off the heat and whisk in the hot sauce — plus the honey, if you’re going honey-buffalo.
- Tip the wings into a big bowl, pour the sauce over and toss until every wing is glossy. Serve immediately with celery and the dip. Napkins are structural, not optional.
Two things the wing obsessives will tell you, and they’re right: sauce the wings at the very last minute, because even the crispiest skin softens once dressed, and warm the bowl first so the butter sauce stays loose and glossy while you toss. Cooking for a footy-finals crowd? Roast two trays and hold the first in a low oven — naked wings keep, sauced wings don’t.
Round out the table with pickled jalapeños with lime for the brave, and raid the rest of the condiments shelf before footy finals — wings this good draw a crowd.
