Fall in Love With Chicken Wings

A couple of days ago I posted an article about saving money on your food bill and mentioned a few recipes you could try. Today I want to share a couple of ideas of ways to use chicken wings. Chicken wings are an often overlooked but surprisingly versatile ingredient. When roasting a whole chicken, they are usually wasted as they end up overdone. Buying a pack of raw wings is remarkably cheap and with the ongoing cost of living crisis making budgets even tighter, then good value is even more important. As they are such a versatile ingredient they can provide an excellent base for so many other dishes. Did you know that Lidl sells a huge range of chicken including drumstick fillets?

Buffalo Chicken Wings

Chicken wings make for an addictive, sticky beer snack. It doesn’t get much better than this. If you want to cheat, then there are some great sauces and marinades out there (Franks buffalo wing sauce is my favourite). Stick in a bowl, add mates and beer. Serve immediately

Ingredients

1kg Chicken wings

1 tbsp Paprika

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1 tin of tomatoes

2 tbsp brown sugar

100ml cider vinegar

1 chilli (chopped and deseeded)

2tbsp runny honey

Method

1. Cut off the wing tips from each of the chicken wings and set aside. Cut each wing into 2 at the middle joint
2. In a pan heat all other ingredients EXCEPT the honey.
3. Blitz until smooth and divide into 2 bowls.
4. Toss the wings through the sauce in the first bowl. Discard any remaining sauce from this bowl after this step.
5. Put the wings on a tray and bake at 180 degrees until cooked through.
6. OPTIONAL STEP. Heat oil in a deep fat fryer to 190 degrees and fry the wings until crispy
7. Either toss the wings in the sauce and serve or serve the wings with a dipping sauce on the side from the second bowl.

Chicken Stock

Chicken wings are a brilliant ingredient for making your own stock which is not only easy but cheap to do. Once you have a stock made from chicken wings you can use it as the basis for so many other recipes such as gravy (make in advance and freeze to help you to get prepared for Chistmas), soups, pie fillings, risottos, casseroles, stews, curries, broths, sauces and a whole host of others.

Ingredients

450g Chicken wings

2 litres water

1tsp salt

2 large carrots

1 large onion

2 sticks of celery

Method

1. Place the chicken wings, water and salt into a heavy based pan.
2. Slowly bring to the boil and remove any white scum that floats to the surface.
3. Cover and simmer for 3 hourss
4. Add tha roughly chopped carrots, onion and celery then recover and simmer foar another 2 hours.
5. Strain and taste. If it lacks flavour then return to the rinsed pan and boil for 10-20 minutes to reduce
6. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool.
7. Once cooled, remove any fat from the surface.
8. Cover and store in the fridge or freeze. If refridgerated, use within 1 week.

^{*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This page may contain affiliate links that mean I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full privacy policy here.}