Spicy Thai Sweet Chili Wings Recipe
This thai sweet chili wings recipe is: Paleo, Gluten Free, Primal, Low Carb and Wheat Belly friendly.
Before I get started in on the spicy Thai sweet chili wings recipe, I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge a couple successes. Today (November 23, 2015) marks the one month anniversary for officially starting the I’d Rather Be A Chef blog. It’s been busy too! There have been 24 new recipe posts over this past month… every one of them has been Gluten Free and about 85% have been Paleo. I have to say that I absolutely love the paleo lifestyle.
Today is also a personal milestone of one month strictly following the Paleo guidelines. I’m proud and surprised to say that in that time I’ve dropped 21 pounds. Lots of workouts, being mindful of the food supply (organic and grass fed proteins) and limited alcohol intake have made a huge impact on my physical and mental wellbeing. I’m not going to jump on a soapbox, but just wanted to say that for me, this is really working.
Okay, so back to the Thai sweet chili wings recipe. I have to give another shoutout and thank you to one of our readers, Wendy. A couple weeks ago she was reviewing the recipe for homemade sage sausage and asked if I would make her a recipe for sweet fennel sausage. It seemed like a great idea, so we made it and wow was it good. For this recipe she saw our post on Facebook for the Smoked Wings with Mustard Sauce recipe and said that a Thai Sweet Chili Wings recipe would be awesome. Here you go Wendy- hope that you like it!
SUBSTITUTIONS: This Thai sweet chili wings recipe uses raw honey to adhere to Paleo principles, but you can use regular honey if that is what you have on hand. My suggestion is to find apple cider vinegar with the mother if you can. Not only is it better for you, but it tastes better as well. I used Bragg’s (not a paid endorsement). The last substitution for this recipe would be to sub out the arrowroot powder for corn, potato or tapioca starch.
QUICK COOKING TIP: Ginger is an awesome ingredient. The only problem with it is the fibrous nature. Ginger is hard to grate because it clogs up the openings on the grater. Over the years I’ve read a lot of recipes that call for grated ginger which is just difficult to make. My suggestion is to peel the ginger, mince it and then toss into a mini-prep. The ginger gets chopped down to size and works great in most recipes.
Now it’s time to get to the good stuff with this Thai sweet chili wings recipe.
- 30 Wings
- 2 TBSP Granulated Garlic
- 1 TBSP Granulated Onion
- 1 TSP Kosher Salt
- 1/4 TSP Cayenne
- 1/4 TSP Fresh Cracked Pepper
- 1 TBSP Olive Oil
- 1/2 Cup Cider Vinegar I used Braggs
- 2 Cloves Garlic peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 TSP Fresh Ginger peeled and roughly chopped, about 1 thumb
- 1/4 Cup Fresno Chilis seeded and roughly chopped, about 2
- 1/4 Cup Raw Honey
- 1 TBSP Fish Sauce
- 1/2 TSP Kosher Salt
- 2 TSP Arrowroot plus 1/4 cup water for the slurry
- 3-4 Cranks Fresh Cracked Pepper
- Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.
- In a bowl, add in the wings, seasonings and olive oil. With a rubber spatula, mix until the wings are nicely coated.
- Place the wings, skin side up, in a single layer on a foil covered baking sheet.
- Put in the oven for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, increase the oven temp to 450. Cook another 30 minutes.
- The wings should be nice and crispy now. Remove from the oven and set aside.
- While the wings are cooking, let's make the sauce.
- Add the Garlic, Ginger, Chilis, Honey and Fish sauce to a mini-prep or food processor. Blitz until it is chopped really well.
- Add the honey mixture to a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Add in the Cider Vinegar and stir. When it starts to bubble a little bit, add in the Arrowroot slurry.
- Mix well and add in the salt and pepper. Continue to stir consistently for 6-8 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and set aside to cool until the wings are cooked.
- Add some of the sauce to the bottom of a clean mixing bowl.
- Toss in some wings and stir around with a rubber spatula to coat.
- Serve immediately and happy eating!
I like these with a little freshly chopped green onion. I just use the green part for some freshness that is delicious.
You can also add some of the sauce onto the wings during the last 4-5 minutes of cooking if you want them a bit glazed.
Final thoughts on the Thai Sweet Chili Wings Recipe:
WOW ARE THESE GOOD! The rub on the wings at the beginning really matches so perfectly with the sweet heat from the sweet chili sauce. At first, I thought that the sauce was going to be way too hot (spicy) for my family to enjoy. But when the wings are coated with the sauce, they just balance out to a mouth warming delicious bite. Out of the 30 wings that were made, I think that my kids ate about half! Just so good.
You can make a bunch of the sweet chili sauce. I wouldn’t keep it for more than a week to ten days in the fridge but you can put it on chicken, pork or fish. Caroline has put sauces like this over a plain goat cheese log as a delicious appetizer at a lot of parties in the past as well. Get creative with it!
If you liked this Thai sweet chili wings recipe, let me know! Thanks and happy eating.
I wonder if you could make a big batch and freeze this sauce and use at a later date…
Hi Steph:
I would assume that you could freeze the sauce and reheat at a future point pretty easily. I’m not sure I would cook the wings, coat and then freeze the cooked, dressed wings. Most likely just the sauce and coat on freshly cooked wings. Hope this helps.
Thank you for writing and happy cooking!
Scott
I made these for my wife (she loves sweet chili sauce) yesterday. All I can say is INCREDIBLE. So tasty. These have made it into our permanent wing rotation!
Hey JD:
Great to hear that! We have wings in our house all the time – so variety is crucial.
Thank you for sharing.
Take care,
Scott