Asian, Italian updates give game day wings a lift

The upcoming Super Bowl is a great day for television and a bad day for chickens.

According to the National Chicken Council, Americans ate about 1.4 billion — billion! — chicken wings during the big game in 2020. That’s about five wings for every person living in the United States.

The majority of those wings undoubtedly were the classic Buffalo-style ones invented in 1964. They are darn good, but you’ve been eating them for decades. Time to branch out.

Chicken wings are a great canvas for creativity because they so easily take on the flavors of anything applied to them.

There’s not a lot of meat to them, so it’s all about the sauce. Make your own sauce or use a store-bought variety.

I have only two hard rules for wings.

The first is that they must get a good soak in buttermilk for at least four hours, preferably overnight, before I even think about cooking them. Buttermilk has a way of penetrating into the meat, keeping it extremely moist during the cooking process and giving it a slight tang.

The second is that you should always cook your own. Most restaurant wings are fried. A better option is to cook them over the grill, which will introduce yet another layer of wonderful flavor from the smoke.

Cooking them in a standard oven works well, too. And with either cooking method, you will save about half the calories vs. the fryer.

Wings also take well to the smoker, but there’s a caveat: When chicken is smoked low and slow at around 250 degrees, the skin doesn’t get hot enough to tighten, and your end result can produce a rubbery texture. Smoked wings need a high-heat finish either on the grill or in the oven for optimal results.

If you’re grilling or using the oven, you want to cook them between

400 to 500 degrees, for

15, if you presmoked them, to 45 minutes.

Now: drumettes vs. flats. Drumettes are the thicker portion of the wing that connect to the chest, and the flats are the cuts closest to the end of the wing. There’s always debate about which is better.

I say don’t choose and use the whole wing so you get both. Additional pluses are that larger pieces of meat are less likely to overcook and a package of whole wings costs a little less than a package of drumettes or flats.

But the key to any good wing will always be in the sauce, and you don’t have to make it yourself. The aisles of most grocery stores are lined with conventional wing sauce options that range in flavors from fruit-based to garlic Parmesan blends.

I like to add a creamy Greek tzatziki sauce, which can be found in the deli section, to a fresh batch of wings. The cool hints of yogurt, dill and cucumber in the sauce make for a winning wing.

But it is much more rewarding to make your own sauces.

Honey is a natural ingredient that acts as a sticky binding agent to spices and provides a sweet finish that nicely counterbalances spicy Sriracha.

I’m also a sucker for pesto and have been known to eat it straight out of a bowl with a tube of crackers. The basil, garlic and olive oil give game-day wings a surprisingly Italian twist.

Making your own Thaistyle peanut sauce is also worth it. My recipe sticks to the chicken like Velcro, and when garnished with a sprinkling of ground peanuts, it looks like a restaurant dish.

Lisa Krantz / Staff photographer Honey Sriracha Wings offer a little heat and a lot of sweet.

Lisa Krantz / Staff photographer Honey Sriracha Wings are surrounded by Smoked Pesto Wings (from top, clockwise), Greek Tzatziki Wings, Thai Peanut Wings and Parmesan Garlic Wings.