Plan Your Super Bowl Chicken Wings Now – Lifehacker

One doesn’t have to watch football to enjoy an abundance of chicken wings, but I cannot watch the sport without them. Whether they are grilled, blasted in an oven, fried, or cooked with a gimmicky kitchen appliance, good wings are almost never a “last minute” endeavor. This is why it suits you to figure out your plan of attack now, lest you be caught wingless on Super Bowl Sunday.

Wings require a fair amount of labor, and you have time to figure out the exact kind of labor you want to perform. Do you want to buy whole wings, and break them down yourself? Do you want to brine or marinade? Will they need an overnight stay in the fridge to dry out, and help ensure crispy skin? (Yes, they almost always do.) You have a lot of options, and (as of now) plenty of time to pick the option that is right for you.

Sous-vide wings

These sous-vide wings are slowly cooked in duck fat for four hours, dried in the fridge overnight, then shallow-fried in hot oil. As you can see from the above photo, the skin is crisp and the meat is moist. I won’t say they’re “perfect,” because I don’t believe in absolutes, but they’re very, very good.

Steamed and broiled wings

These babies are steamed in the Instant Pot, rested in the fridge overnight, then sauced, broiled, and sauced again for a crispy-skinned, tender wing that won’t leave you or your kitchen coated with oily residue. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, don’t panic—you can steam them on the stove, let them rest, then execute the sauce-broil-sauce maneuver for similar results.

Brined, grilled wings

If you live in an area where grilling out isn’t a completely miserable activity, you could do a hell of a lot worse than these brined and grilled, Caesar dressing-coated wings. (They’re also the fastest option.) The wings are soaked in pickling brine for half an hour, then coated in a mixture of cornstarch and pepper for a crisp skin that won’t stick to your grill grates. You can toss them in any sauce you desire, but I urge you to give this funky, cheesy Caesar dressing a try.