Hot Wing Aioli

3/4 c mayonnaise
2 crushed garlic cloves
3 T buffalo wing sauce (Frank's, Hooter's, Cookie's...whichever brand you prefer)
¼ tsp Cayenne pepper (more or less, to taste)
¼ tsp onion powder (optional)
¼ c Bleu cheese crumbles (optional)

Mix together and serve with pretzels, crackers or combine with shredded chicken for a spicy chicken salad.

Or lick it off your fingers. You know, like I do. YUM!

Gluten-Free Buffalo Chicken Nuggets

After forty years of eating badly and filling my diet with wheat flours, dairy and sugar, this transition has been the most monumental thing I've ever tackled. It has not been fun. It has not been exciting. And, sadly, it has not been flavorful. When I made a dairy-free ranch dressing last night and it tasted like infant formula mixed with onion powder and the tears of disappointed fat kids, I literally cried. I knew I had to find something that I normally ate that could be modified effectively. Enter my passion for buffalo chicken. If there wasn't SOME way I could make this dish happen on this new diet, I knew I'd never make it work.

God bless rice flour and canola oil.

If you've seen my recipe for chicken lips or fried chicken, you know what I normally use to make them: milk, all-purpose flour, etc. This is a simple substitution and it. tastes. AMAZING. Not "I'm going to tell them it's amazing when it tastes like roof shingles" amazing. I'm talking INCREDIBLY good. My family tried them and they think they're even better than my usual recipe. I tend to agree.

2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 eggs, beaten
¼ c Red Hot Wing sauce
½ c water
1 c rice flour (almond flour would also work)
1 c corn starch
salt
pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
canola oil (or other healthy oil) for frying.

Without getting all "Alton Brown-scientific" on you, trust me that you'll want to cut your chicken into thinner strips than normal before cutting into nugget size. Between the rice flour/corn starch being different from regular flour breading and the oil being a different smoke point, you can burn the crust of the nugget and have raw chicken inside. You don't want that. :) I would say a good measure would be about ½" thick and 1-1½" long.

Mix together the eggs, hot sauce and water in a bowl. Typically I would use a milk/egg wash and, if you chose to, you could use coconut or almond milk, but I wanted to try this first. You can use a different hot sauce/water mix depending on how spicy you want the breading.

Mix together the rice flour and corn starch, then add the seasonings to taste. You can add any seasonings you'd like (cayenne, paprika, etc) or keep it plain with just salt and pepper. 

Preheat your oil to 375° (this is a relative guess, as I don't usually use a thermometer. When a pinch of flour sizzles when dropped in the hot oil, it's warm enough).

Dip the chicken pieces in the egg mixture, then the flour mixture. Double-dip back in the egg mixture and the dry mix again. Add to the hot oil and cook on each side until golden brown.

Drain on a paper towel or napkin, letting the nuggets cool for a couple minutes. Sometimes rice flour and corn starch can be gummy and fall off if you handle them too much right out of the oil.

I'm sure these can also be baked with the use of a cooking spray, so if anyone knows how to do this effectively, I look forward to hearing from you.

I drizzled these with more Red Hot wing sauce, but you could serve plain, too. They're crunchy, flavorful and absolutely delicious.

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken

(shown here with ranch dressing and shredded lettuce on a Hoagie roll)

This recipe is SO versatile! I stumbled upon it on Pinterest. Since my grocery store was out of the Frank's Buffalo Wing sauce, I substituted. We put it on hoagie rolls tonight, but it can be put in tortilla shells with lettuce and cheese for a chicken wrap. You can use it as a pizza topping, put it over pasta, mix with cream cheese for a buffalo chicken dip, combine with bleu cheese and put over a greens salad or serve with tortilla chips with melted cheese, chopped green onions and sour cream as buffalo chicken nachos. You can even combine it with onions, green peppers and Provolone on a hoagie as a Buffalo Philly. For those concerned about the spice, I'd give it a 5 on a scale of 1-10 for heat. It's got a little bite, but it's not totally intolerable, unless you think ketchup is spicy.

1 3lb bag thawed chicken breasts, skinless & boneless (Don't use frozen! Thaw them out first.)
½ bottle Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce (I used Cookies Wings & Things)
1 envelope dry Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing mix

Combine all three ingredients in a Crock Pot on low. Cook for 6-7 hours. Remove chicken breasts, shred them and return them to the sauce. Simmer for an additional hour. Serve as mentioned above.

***There's a LOT of sauce when this chicken is ready to serve. Make sure to use a slotted spoon to scoop it out of the pot so you don't get a watered down sandwich. I'd also suggest draining it before using it in other recipes, such as buffalo chicken dip or on nachos.

Chicken Lips

 

Lips breading & batter

3lbs      boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into long strips about as thick as your thumb

1c        all-purpose flour

½t        black pepper

¼t        paprika

¼t        cayenne pepper

½t        salt

½t        garlic powder

2          eggs

2c        milk or buttermilk

6c        vegetable oil –heated to 375°

Hot Sauce

½c       butter or margarine

½c       Louisiana Hot Sauce

1T        white vinegar

¼t        celery seed

¼t        cayenne pepper

¼t        crushed red pepper

½t        garlic powder

¼t        Worcestershire sauce

2t         Tabasco sauce

(Or cheat like I do most days and buy a bottle of wing sauce like "Wings n' Things" from Cookies or Hooter's Wing Sauce.)

Lips instructions:

1. Combine flour and spices in a large bowl with a lid and in another bowl whisk together eggs and milk

3. Two or three pieces at a time, dunk chicken into milk mix coating completely before tossing in breading mix.

4. Put lid on breading mix bowl and shake your lips until they’re well coated.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 (carefully!)

6. After double-coating the lips, deep fry them for about 5-7 mins until golden brown and drain on paper towels or newspapers.

Sauce instructions:

1. Heat butter until barely melted, put it in a blender and add remaining ingredients.

2. Blend until mix turns a light, frothy orange color.

3. Heat in the microwave or on stove top until warm and bubbly.

(Or again…crack open that bottle of Wing Sauce and mix it with about a ½ C of ranch dressing – depending on how much of a weenie you are)

Place lips in a large container and pour sauce over them, coating completely. Gently shake the lips around in the sauce until they’re covered. Get yourself a big glass of sweet tea, a bottle of Tums and dig in!

Perfect with beer ranch dressing.