Southern Fried Buffalo Wings sounds crazy doesn’t it? Its like I could not make up my mind on whether to make fried chicken or buffalo wings. Yet the truth is that right after Saint Patricks’ day I had some leftover  buttermilk. I had no idea what to do with it until I decided to make a small batch of buffalo wings for myself. I soaked the wings in some buttermilk that I added Franks Red Hot Sauce to and after coating them in flour and spices, I fried those bad boys up and coated them with sauce! Turns out, they were delicious.

        I told my nephew about my new recipe and promised him I would make another batch soon. Well, last night was soon enough and I cooked up a fresh batch of wings for him and my sister-in-law. These wings are extra crispy and I covered them in my famous buffalo style wing sauce. I served them with lots of carrot sticks, celery sticks and blue cheese dressing on the side. I also made Jennifer a batch of boneless wings using my boneless wing recipe and we all ate some of those too!

        Here is the Boneless Buffalo Wings that I have already published here boneless-buffalo-wings. See below for the Southern Fried Recipe. The chicken is free-range chicken that I purchased from @ImperfectFoods along with the carrots and the celery.

Sothern Fried Chicken (wings version)

Serves  4 to 6

INGREDIENTS:

Coating:

2 pounds of chicken wings

          (Three packages from Imperfect Foods)

3 cups of flour

½ cup of cornstarch

2 tsp. paprika

1 tsp salt

½ tsp. white pepper

½ tsp. garlic powder

½ tsp. onion power

Marinade:

2 cups buttermilk

¼ cup hot sauce

Sides:

1-pound carrots

1 bunch of celery

1 package Maries Blue Cheese dressing

On quart of peanut, canola or vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS:

The night before you are to fry up the wings, place them into a zip lock bag. Add the buttermilk and hot sauce in the bag with the wings. Close the bag and squeeze thus mixing and coating all the wings evenly. Place the wings with their “marinade” in the meat draw of you regenerator and let marinate over night.

The next day, begin by peeling the carrots and cutting into “sticks” or thin strips.  Next wash and cut up the celery into strips. Place the carrots and celery in a bowl of ice water and place the bowl in the refrigerator. This will insure your celery and carrots are nice a crunchy later when the chicken is done.

I a clean zip top bag add the 3 cups of flour, ½ cup of cornstarch, 2 tsp. paprika, 1 tsp. salt, ½ tsp. white pepper, ½ tsp. garlic powder and ½ tsp. onion power. Close the bag and shake well combining all the ingredients.

Remove the chicken from the fridge and drop 3 to 4 wings into the bag with the flour mixture. Close and shake the flour bag well to coat the wings. Repeat the last step repeatedly until all the wings are in the flour. Once all the wings are in the flour, close the bag and let stand while the coating adheres to the chicken.  

Now fill your cast iron pan half way with your preferred frying oil. Heat the oil to 350 to 375 degrees.

Place 6 to 7 wings in the hot oil. Do not over crowd the pan. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes until a light golden brown. Remove to a sheet pan lined with paper towels or brown paper bag.

Wait until the oil returns to 350 degrees and add you second batch to the hot oil.

Repeat the last two steps until all the chicken is fried once. Then you can begin to make the sauce. Next, fry the chicken a second time just as before but this time they will be a deep rich brown and extra crunchy. Place the chicken in a large stainless steel bowl and coat with the sauce.

Serve with carrot sticks, celery sticks, blue cheese dressing and lots of cold beer.

The Drunken Chef Russ

NOTES: I own a large and extra deep cast iron pan given to me by a coworker and follower. I love this pan and use it often. For me, aside from a professional deep fryer, this is the perfect vessel for frying chicken.

© Russ Ahrens and The Magic of a Perfect Pairing, 2022