This homemade honey hot wing sauce is the perfect companion for your chicken wings! It blends sweet, spicy and tangy flavors into a symphony of flavors that will make you fly off the roof!
And all of the ingredients you’ll need to make it are waiting in your pantry! Let’s dig in and see what makes this the best honey hot wing sauce recipe!
My Homemade Honey Hot Wing Sauce Recipe
There are several different variations of the staple sweet buffalo sauce, but all of them are made with 3 simple ingredients – honey, butter and hot sauce.
This recipe doesn’t make an exception, but it also includes szechuan chili flakes as an additional source of heat.
I like using them instead of regular chili flakes, since they also add an additional dimension of flavor to the sauce.
However, if you don’t have any on hand, you can easily replace them with regular red chili flakes.
I’ve also made a list with alternatives, in case you want to try out some of the other honey-based formulas.
Recipe Ingredients
- Butter will enrich the flavor of the sauce and tone down some of its spiciness.
- Honey (preferable raw) will tantalize your taste buds with its promise of sweetness. You’d want to use raw honey here as that works best, but it will still turn out delicious if you can’t source any.
- Hot Sauce gives this recipe its kick.
This recipe is made with Frank’s hot sauce, but you can substitute it for Tabasco.
In the photos I used Tabasco but my original recipe is with Frank’s hot sauce which is what I recommend going with.
- Cayenne Pepper will add an additional layer of spiciness.
Although this sauce is meant to be spicy, I have a recipe for a mild buffalo wing sauce that people with more sensitive tummies may find appealing. It’s still a great sauce for chicken wings but I made sure to use mellower ingredients.
How to Make It
Check out the recipe card at the end of this article for detailed, step-by-step instructions.
Making hot honey buffalo sauce is easy. All you’ll need to do is follow these 6 simple steps:
- Melt the butter over medium heat in a small saucepan.
- Stir in the raw honey and the hot sauce.
- Add the chili flakes.
- Whisk the sauce until it’s well combined.
- Simmer for 1 – 2 minutes.
- Let the sauce rest for 10 minutes.
Variations
- Memphis Honey Hot Sauce.
You can easily turn this recipe into Memphis Honey Gold Sauce by adding more spices and tinkering with some of the ingredients.
To do so, use 2/3 cups of Frank’s hot sauce along with 2 tbsp white vinegar, 1 tsp onion powder, 2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp chili powder, 2 tbsp turmeric and 1/2 cup brown sugar.
The amount of butter and honey should stay the same.
For a barbecue sauce that does not contain vinegar but still goes great with chicken wings check this easy recipe idea.
- Honey Hot Garlic Sauce.
Craving for something Chinese?
Then add 3 cloves of crushed garlic, and a tablespoon of finely chopped ginger.
- Honey Gold Hot Sauce.
To make this into Honey Gold Hot sauce, simply melt 2 tbsp of butter and add in equal parts yellow mustard and hot sauce.
Season with a dash of Worcestershire, and a pinch of garlic and onion powder.
Simmer on low heat for two minutes, then adjust the amount of mustard to your taste.
As for more wing sauce ideas that are not sweet you check my recipe on homemade garlice parmesan buffalo wings sauce.
Can you store Honey Hot Wing sauce in the fridge?
Even though you can store this homemade Honey Hot Wing sauce in the fridge for up to three months, I don’t recommend doing it.
This is because the sauce will solidify and it won’t have the same texture or taste when you reheat it.
Have you tried this recipe?
Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts! I also have more wings recipe ideas for you to try:
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Easy Homemade Honey Hot Wing Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Honey
- 2 tbsp Frank's Hot Sauce or Tabasco Sauce
- 2 tbsp Unsalted Butter
- 1 tsp Szechuan Chili flakes or Red Chilli Flakes
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Stir in the honey, hot sauce, and chili flakes.
- Whisk all of the ingredients until they're well combined, then simmer the sauce for a minute.
- Let the sauce rest for 10 minutes so it can take in the heat from the chili flakes.
Video
Notes
- When stored in the fridge this sauce gets jelly-like and its surface solidifies from the animal fats in it. If you do happen to save some for another meal just heat it a little, but keep in mind that the taste will be stronger.
- This sauce is best made with raw honey. I used raw honey from a local beekeeper.
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Nutrition
I do my best to provide you with the nutritional information for recipes but I'm not a certified nutritionist. The nutritional information provided should only be treated as an estimate since it will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
This recipe is my husband’s new favorite. I added a tbs of minced garlic to it. What a flavor
Hi, Mary,
I’m so happy he liked it!
– Aya