Sweet Sriracha Wings

Chicken wings were on sale at Whole Foods today, so I thought I'd buy some and surprise Matt with a fun dinner.  We shared a pound and a half of wings for dinner.  That's it.  Probably should have eaten a salad too, but whatever...next time!  I put together this recipe after a little research into other non-fried chicken wings.  Matt said that the desired crispiness of fried wings was there, and I agreed.  Matt (who is the champion kitchen cleaner around here) also liked something else about these wings other than the mind blowingly awesome flavor, crisp outside and juicy inside: super easy clean up!  If you don't like my sauce suggestion below, you could always just toss the wings in some buffalo sauce and call it a day as well.

So, it is a little late to make these for today's big Pats game day, but since I'm sure they'll be playing next week...plan ahead accordingly! :)

The following recipe makes enough for two very hungry adults not eating anything else (except maybe a salad, to you know, balance things out).

For the wings:
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds wings (if the wing is still attached to the drumstick, separate, although often you can buy wingettes and drumettes together, already separated) 
• 2 TBS flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (or 1 tsp of your favorite chili powder blend

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 450
• Put flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a large ziplock bag and shake to mix.  
• Add wings. 
• Close bag and shake to coat wings all over with seasoned flour.
• Cover rimmed baking sheet with foil (this is the easy cleanup part!) and lightly oil with olive or vegetable oil
• Place wings on foil-lined baking sheet, drizzle or spray a little oil atop each wing
• Place in oven for 45 minutes until browned and crispy.
• Turn wings at 30 minute mark and 15 minute mark.

For sauce:

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS unsalted butter, melted
• 2 TBS jalapeño jelly (or other hot pepper jelly, like an apricot-habanero), melted (careful melting this in a microwave, it melts within about 10 seconds)
• 2 TBS Sriracha

To prepare wings to serve:

• Put sauce ingredients in a large bowl, whisk to combine
• Add wings, hot from the oven
• Toss to coat wings in sauce thoroughly
• Consume whilst making mmmm noises and marveling that you don't have 3 quarts of oil to clean up, or a pan to scrub or anything more than washing a bowl and a couple plates....