My perfect Super Bowl menu includes Diner Cheeseburger Sliders with Hot Trash Sauce, right around a million hot wings, and anywhere from four to 31 dips. If there isn’t a Crock Pot with a trough of Green Chili Chorizo Queso, is it even the Super Bowl?
Give me dips or give me death. I want chips, veggies, (gluten-free) crackers and crostini as far as the eye can see.
My favorite measure of happiness is how sloppy and saucy and drippy and messy my eaters are mixed with all their “Mmmms” and “Yummms.” Is your juicy burger dripping down your arms? Perfect.
Don’t think for a second that I didn’t include my favorite football food in Feed These People. Hell, that is an entire genre in my family.
Today, though, I want to give four steps to a winning Super Bowl party…
One, share the load. Super Bowl parties should ALWAYS be potluck. Furthermore, ask everyone to bring their award-winning, crowd favorite best appetizer. Weed out the lame, dry, store-bought cookies!
Two, disposable everything. SB parties are supposed to be fun, and what is not fun is two hours’ worth of dirty dishes after everyone goes home.
Three, read the room. At every Super Bowl party, some want to actually watch the game, and some want to eat the snacks and maybe watch the commercials. Have two designated spaces! One for the hard-core watchers, and one for the “go…sports” crowd.
Four, make these wings (or if you have a copy of Feed These People, you can’t go wrong with said sliders or queso, either — you know the ones).
Back to the wings… Maybe no other recipe that hits my favorite football marks more than hot, crispy chicken wings with homemade blue cheese sauce. Nobody doesn’t love them. No. Body. They are a delectable saucy mess. In my family, we make ‘em spiiiiiiicy—and we’re not sorry.
You can fry, bake, or grill these, but be sure to make a mountain of them, because you can’t eat less than six. I don’t make the rules. I’m going to beg you not to skip the blue cheese sauce because Wings + BC = TruLuv4Eva. However you do it, when you gather your favorite people and feed them outrageously good food, you are winning at life. Obviously: shoes are optional for this enterprise.
Chicken Wings and Blue Cheese (excerpted from Feed These People)
Ingredients
- 3 pounds chicken wings (I’m assuming you want a bunch)
- 3 tablespoons neutral oil
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 2 teaspoons black pepper
- 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (or kick it up if you like to party)
Wing Sauce
- 1 (17-ounce) bottle sriracha
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 stick butter, melted but slightly cooled (that is Lindsay’s weird instruction)
Blue Cheese Dressing
- 12 ounces blue cheese crumbles
- 1 cup mayo
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 cups buttermilk (you might use less than the full amount)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Black pepper
This feeds a crowd, because who makes wings for three people?
Crank your oven to 425°F and let it preheat.
Rinse your wings and pat them totally dry, then coat them with the oil. Put the flour, salt, black pepper, and cayenne in a large bag (I use an old-timey brown paper bag like I’m at the five-and-dime in 1957, but you can do this in a big bowl) and shake it up. Toss in your oiled wings. Shake shake shake. We just want these lightly coated.
Grab a couple of baking sheets and a wire rack for each. Line the pans with foil and set a rack on top of the foil. (Your cleanup now equals trash-and-toss.) Pick up each wing with tongs, shake off any excess flour, and set on the racks in a single layer, not touching. Slide them into that hot oven and bake until the 20-minute mark, then flip and bake until they’re crispy, brown, and sizzling, anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes more.
While the wings are browning up, get your blender out for the two sauces.
- For the wing sauce, combine the sriracha and maple syrup and blend. With the blender running, slowly drizzle in the melted butter. Take a quick taste. Want it sweeter? Add more syrup. (Not a sriracha fan? Use your favorite store-bought wing sauce. But you don’t get to leave out the butter. Sorry. You remember that I don’t make the rules.) Pour this into a large bowl and rinse the blender jar.
- For the blue cheese dressing, combine all the blue cheese ingredients. Don’t add the full pint of buttermilk right out of the gate—maybe start with half. Blend it up and see if you like the consistency of the dressing, then add more buttermilk to thin it if you prefer. Pour the dressing into a serving bowl.
When your wings are done, put them in the bowl with the wing sauce and toss and toss to coat. Serve these with the bowl of blue cheese alongside for dipping.