14 Wing Recipes Just In Time For The Super Bowl

If you were stranded on a desert island with a flat-screen inexplicably airing the Super Bowl and any food in the world, what would it be? Wait, don't answer, we already know. It's mini sun-dried tomato quiche. Ha, messing with you. We know it's wings, and we regard the peak of wing season with the utmost respect, as demonstrated by these 14 spectacular wing recipes for tailgating.

We do them spicy, extra-spicy and "why did we go all trigger happy with the ghost chili sauce" spicy. We brine them, grill them, stuff them, smoke them, wrap them in the stuff we were going to stuff them with and yes, occasionally we'll deep-fry them and toss them in Frank's with a little butter and some cayenne. Point being, there is no shortage of the flightless appendage of the hen. Also known as the chicken wing.

I am a firm believer that alcohol belongs in food as much as it does in a bottle, so I paired gin, with its nice woodsy undertones, with the sweetness of brown sugar for a Gin and Lemon Chicken Wings recipe so easy that you can prepare it during commercials.

In South Carolina, pork barbecue is served with a thick mustard sauce. Turns out, it's great for wings, too. Stash them in the slow cooker and you'll have no distractions from your party guests or the big game.

When the source of this recipe described it for me, I couldn't believe the ingredients. You'll be skeptical, too, but these are great wings. I've made a few changes to the original chicken recipe to adapt it to wings. Don't cook these on the grill.

Buffalo wings are entirely necessary for important (and not so important) football games. We didn't make it up, folks, it's science. Maybe even fate. The combination of pigskin, yelling, love for one's team and pride in one's enormous flatscreen can be matched, if not surpassed, only by a spicy buffalo wing dunked in creamy blue cheese dressing.

Recently, sriracha has become more popular than William Shatner at a Star Trek Convention. The sriracha gives the wings a spicy kick, while the sweetness of the honey and the tanginess of the rice wine vinegar balance each other out. Make these for your next tailgate and convert your friends to the red side. 

While these bison-stuffed chicken wings require a little more effort than other wing recipes, they are well worth it. The pistachio adds an addictive crunchy quality. One taste of these smoked and stuffed wings and you too will agree that these impressive crowd-pleasers are worth the extra time in the kitchen. 

The Jackson Street Baked Hot Wings recipe began when I found out that buffalo wings are basically fried naked wings with a sauce of butter and Frank's hot sauce poured on top. I really wanted to create a baked chicken "hot" wing with Asian flavors that would rival the best deep-fried versions.

These wings are more about intense flavor than heat — few flavors are more intense than sour, pungent, slightly fruity tamarind, which I ate a lot of in India (along with plenty of garlic and ginger). But I flew through London, hence the Newcastle. 

Everyone has that one friend who scoffs at the heat level of a perfectly decent batch of wings. Ready to silence him and enjoy the game your way? Clarified butter helps cut the heat (a little) while amplifying the chili's flavor — fruity and slightly herbal, if you can make it through the million or so Scoville units.

Where Singapore and America meet and greet.

Check out this recipe for honey baked pistachio wings from the man who invented the underground fried chicken DJ party: Dante Gonzales of Dante Fried Chicken, Ride or Fry food truck and subsequent pop-ups. He is one guy to trust with your poultry if you want it crispy and delicious. You do, right? Then heed his secret trick and don't even think of cutting corners.

John Stage is owner/pitmaster of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Harlem, New York, where you can regularly find us chowing down on massive platters of expertly smoked meat with all the fixins. He was kind enough to loan his recipe for barbecue chicken wings just in time for the home stretch toward the Super Bowl. 

Store-bought hoisin sauce and canned plums make this Asian take on chicken wings extra easy. Fire up the sauce by adding 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper to the plum mixture before cooking.

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