On Saturday I won the Wingtacular Hot Wing Competition with this recipe.  It starts sweet and ends with heat.  It also has that awesome hot wing color that many look for.  I am lacking pictures of me making the sauce as, ok no excuses, I forgot to take pics.  I have plenty of pics of the final product though.

Award winning hot wings

I started my sauce by making my own hot sauce.  I made a variation of the hot sauce recipe from my previous post on homemade hot sauce.  Instead of using the green peppers I used 15 fresh red hot peppers, 1 fresh habenero, 30 dried Arbol Chili Pods, 8 dried California Chili Pods, 4 dried Ancho Chili Pods, 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes and 2 tsp of cayenne pepper.

I followed the directions on from my hot sauce recipe except that I re-hydrated the dry chili pods by simmering them on the stove for 15 minutes.  Also I used 1/4 cup of the water that I got from the chili pods after I re-hydrated them. 

Hot wing sauce

• Homemade hot sauce (see above ingredients using the method here)
  I used however much the hot sauce recipe makes.  Approximately  2-3 cups
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 small onion
• 1 large tomato
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup ketchup (heinz is preferred store brands use too much vinegar)
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 4 tbs corn syrup
• 2 tbs honey
• 1tbs pickle juice
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Next while my hot sauce was simmering I diced up 4 cloves of garlic, 1 small white onion and 1 large tomato.  Next I melted 1 stick of butter in a sauce pan.  Once the butter was completely melted I skimmed off the milk fat that floated to the top.  Then I added the garlic, onion and tomato to the pan.  I then simmered the ingredients for 10 minutes. 

Next I put the hot sauce and the butter mixture into the blender.  I added a 1/2 cup of ketchup, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, 4 tablespoons of corn syrup, 2 tablespo0ns of honey, 1 tsp of lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon of pickle juice from a jar of pickles.  I then blended it for 5 minutes. 

After blending the ingredients I placed it on a burner to simmer for 30 minutes.  After this time I tested it for heat and sweetness.  If you feel it needs either add more cayenne pepper powder or more corn syrup.  A tip when testing.  It starts off sweet but ends in heat.  So don’t add more cayenne until you wait for a minute after tasting.

I then refrigerated it for 24 hours before using.  I would recommend some resting time in the refrigerator so that it has time for the flavors to meld.  Make sure to heat the sauce up before saucing the wings.  If you do not, the sauce will immediately chill the wings and make them not as appetizing.

Now fry up your wings, place them in a bowl, add some sauce and toss. 

Look at the color and the pepper flakes in the sauce.

These wings are fantastic.  They come at you from behind and hit you with a lot of heat.  The heat can be tamed by using less or even sweeter peppers when making your homemade hot sauce.  If you use sweeter peppers you may not need as much sugar, honey and corn syrup as listed above.

The wings taste great with bleu cheese dressing.

One more shot of the hot wings.

That is me in the middle with "Lord Rex's Cup". This recipe won the cup.

These wings won me “Lord Rex’s Cup” the top prize in the Wingtacular!  Try them for yourself.