Sweet-And-Savory Chicken Wings Don't Have To End With Honey
Honey as a savory element may be a trend, but it's anything but new. Honey mustard, it seems, dates back a few millennia to ancient Egypt, while hot honey's been popular since the 20-tweens. Sure, honey goes great with chicken wings, so chains like Wingstop and Buffalo Wild Wings both have honey-flavored wings on their menus, but honey isn't the only sweet sauce in town. Other options on both menus include traditional-style barbecue sauces as well as sauces that get some sweetness from a fruity element such as orange or mango.
If you're thinking of making savory-sweet chicken wings at home, you could start with a fruit base such as fresh orange juice with soy sauce and brown sugar. Pureed mangoes and habaneros also work well due to the fact that the pepper itself has some sweetness despite its fiery nature. If you'd like to venture further afield, try wings glazed with pepper jelly or even a mixture of grape jelly and peanut butter (yes, this classic combo works as a wing sauce as well as a sandwich filling).
Looking for some wing-spiration? Try our recipes for firehouse wings sauced with ketchup, brown sugar, and soy sauce; sweet chili air fryer sticky wings; or Halloween "bat wings" glazed with a barbecue sauce-pineapple juice-ginger paste combo (skip the black food coloring if they're intended for a non-October occasion). We also have a classic hot wing recipe where the developer suggests adding maple syrup to sweeten up the spicy sauce.
Dry rubbed wings can be a sweet thing, too
One interesting limited-time menu item at Wingstop is wings made with a hot honey rub, proving that even dry-spiced wings can be given the honey treatment. Honey isn't your everyday dry rub component, though, due to the necessity of having to actually dry out the stuff or at least purchase it in powdered form (luckily, this isn't too difficult, as online retailers do carry such a thing). Still, what's even easier is to make a wing rub using sugar as this ingredient is already dry. If you haven't tried cooking wings with dry rub instead of a sauce or marinade, you might be pleasantly surprised not only by the relative ease and mess-free nature of this process but also by the fact that dry-rubbed wings are just as flavorful, if not more so, than saucy ones. Sweet-savory dry rubs are often made with brown sugar, although some cooks opt for white sugar or even a mixture of both types.
We're going with a brown sugar base in our own all-purpose chicken dry rub recipe. In addition to the standard salt/sugar base, this rub features an intriguingly complex blend of seasonings including cayenne, coriander, garlic, nutmeg, onion, pepper, sage, and smoked paprika. Chicken wings rubbed with this dry brine will be sweet, savory, spicy, and with a certain hint of mystery that comes when you can't quite put your finger on a flavor but know it's irresistible.