Everyone loves chicken wings, and most of us probably come close to eating our weight of them during football season.  Problem is, most chicken wings are fried and we all know some doctors frown upon eating fried foods too often (yeah I know, weird).  Here’s the good news, you can grill just about anything (just look at some of our other grilling recipes), and grilling chicken wings is easy!  Grilled chicken wings are not only delicious, but they are easier to cook and are much better for you than fried wings!  Delicious because they combine that grilled and smokey taste with your favorite wing sauce taste.  Easier to prepare because you don’t have to deal with the splattering and disposal of all of that oil.  Health(ier) because they are grilled and not fried.  Hungry yet?  Good, let’s take a look at how to do it…

Ingredients
Chicken Wings (thawed, if frozen)
Kosher Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper
Wing Sauce (Crystal or Budweiser are our favorites, look for them near the Ketchup)

Step 1 – Preheat the grill to medium-high heat.  Grilled chicken wings tend to flare up quite a bit on the grill, so it’s a good idea to get a squirt bottle or glass of water ready by the grill.  If you see a flare-up, just squirt it down with a little water so it doesn’t char the wings too much.  A squirt bottle is the favorite tool of many grillers I know!  Pick up a cheap one at the supermarket if you don’t have one already, it’s the cheapest and most important tool you can have near the grill for these more fatty meats.

Step 2 – Season the chicken wings on all sides with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  We also like to cut off the actual tips of the wings, you know, the part that has no meat.  They just get in the way and make it so our chicken wings don’t lay flat on the grill.  To easily trim the unwanted wing tip, just bend it down and try to cut it right at the joint.

Step 3 – Arrange the wings on the grill.  At the same time, place the wing sauce into a pot and put over low heat.  As we talked about previously in our grilled baby back ribs recipe, we don’t want to put the sauce on before grilling because it might burn.  The skin on the wings will soak that sauce up at the end really easily, so there’s really no need to put the sauce on first.  Bring the sauce to a light simmer while you are grilling your chicken wings and then turn off the heat, we’ll coat the wings with it while they are hot.

Step 4 – Continue to turn the chicken wings every few minutes until the meat is not pink in the center.  This will usually take about 16 – 18 minutes total.  You’ll know the wings are close to being done when you see bubbles forming underneath the skin. These bubbles are formed from the steam coming off of the meat as it cooks through. Also, keep the grill closed as much as you can to speed up the cooking and cut down on the flare-ups.  You can be pretty sure they are done when they have a nice brown or charred layer like this (some charring is fine, the sauce will take care of it).

Step 5 – Toss the chicken wings in the sauce immediately after removing from the grill while they are nice and hot.  I nice large wooden bowl is good for tossing the wings in the sauce. Leave them in the sauce for a few minutes to soak in the goodness.

Step 6 – Serve and enjoy with a little Blue cheese and some celery if that’s your speed!

There you have it, easy and delicious grilled chicken wings!  So next time you have a hunger for wings, throw them on the grill instead.  The clean up is much easier and you won’t feel quite as guilty.  Make sure you leave a few out of the sauce for some of the lightweights at the football party.  Make sure you check out some of our other grilled chicken recipes as well.  Barbeque chicken is a great addition to grilled chicken wings, just make sure you wear an old shirt (or a poncho if you are like me) before you tackle both!