Mike Munhall

Dorrie and I, over the last couple of years, have been on the hunt for the best wings in the Denver area. There are a number of things we look for in wings, including cooking style, meatiness, flavor, wing sauce, heat, and finally, dipping sauce.

The cooking style is important. Generally, deep fried wings are easy, quick and tasty. But, they are also the least healthy option compared to grilled or baked wings. Bonus points go the wings that are grilled or baked, but we never rule out anything prepared in the bubbling oil. It’s a deep-friend-goodness thing; anything tastes good when fried.

It goes without saying that chicken drummettes and wings are better when the meat-to-fat ratio favors the meaty side. A small, fatty wing is gross. Some fat is okay, though, as long as the fat doesn’t overpower the rest of the chicken part. Besides, just like deep-fried-anythings, fat might bad for you, but it tastes good. Also, the meat must be tender and a little juicy, not tough or dry.

When it comes to flavor, we consider flavor to be taste of the meat itself; wing sauce and its flavor is in a category of its own. We’ve tried many wings where the meat tastes gamey or old. Nothing ruins a good wing faster than the taste of gross meat.

The funnest part of the wing, by far, is the wing sauce and the amount of heat the sauce provides. It’s also the most subjective part since everyone has their own taste. Wing sauces and recipes deserve a post of their own, so it wouldn’t be practical to write about wing sauces in too much detail here. What Dorrie and I favor, in any case, is a full-flavored, hotter-than-hell sauce that keeps you reaching for your beer.

Finally, comes the dipping sauce. Dipping sauces, like actual wing sauces, come in too many varieties and tastes and certainly deserve a post of their own. Anything other than bleu cheese dressing or ranch dressing would seem odd to me, but I wouldn’t doubt someone out there has found something that works well.

One would expect, at this point, a list of the best wings in the Denver area based on the criteria just mentioned. Well, Dorrie may write about it on RRC, but we both agree that the best wings we’ve had to this point aren’t served in any restaurant. See, we’ve discovered a few things along the way that have helped us concoct our own, Best-Damn-Wings-in-Denver recipe. For the sauce, we can’t get away from Frank’s wing sauce. It’s hotter-than-hell and tasty. We like bleu cheese with our wings, and for that we like T. Marzetti’s blue cheese salad dressing.

The biggest trick to the Best-Damn-Wings-in-Denver, though, is the meat and the cooking method that Dorrie’s uncle Ted introduced us to. Believe it or not, the best meat we’ve had so far has come from Costco. Yes, buy everything in bulk at Costco, including wings. They’re really large and not too fatty. And they cook up really well.

Believe me, this recipe blows away anything we’ve had in the last two years, and it’s easy too. It takes quite a long time, but it’s worth it in the end. We have to credit uncle Ted for the recipe since, we believe, it’s the cooking method that makes these wings. Another nice thing about the recipe is that you can use any sauce or dressing you like.

Uncle Ted’s Best Damn Wings in Denver

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours

Ingredients

• Chicken wings and drummettes
• Franks’s wing sauce or your favorite sauce (Ted uses BBQ sauce)
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Olive oil
• Blue cheese dressing or your favorite dressing (Ranch is good, too)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Arrange wings and drummettes in a baking dish or pan.
3. Drizzle wings and drummettes with olive oil and a touch of salt and pepper.
4. Bake on middle oven rack for 1 hour.
5. Remove wings and drummettes from oven and mix them around a bit (to prevent them from sticking to the pan).
6. Add a bit more olive oil, salt and pepper.
7. Place the meat back in oven and bake for another hour.
8. Remove wings and drummettes from oven and mix them around again.
9. Place the meat back in the oven and bake for another 30 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and add some wing sauce. We use a lot. Use what you think is right. Remember that you can always add more after the wings are done.
11. Bake for another 30 minutes. The wings are done when most of the liquid cooks off.

Nobody wants their oven on for three hours during the middle of summer. So, an option on this recipe is to grill the meat on direct, low to medium heat for about 30 minutes, turning the meat every five minutes or so. The cooking time, of course, will vary depending on your grill. I don’t care for the grilling method as much as this oven-baked method, but the wings are still really good.

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