Buffalo Wing Sauce

by Sabrina Snyder

Last Update:

25 Comments

5 from 9 votes
6 servings
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 5 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
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Buffalo Wing Sauce takes no time at all, just 4 ingredients and if made right is just as good as your favorite bar’s buffalo wings.

You’ll love this Homemade Sauce tossed with baked Buffalo Wings and Super Crispy Chicken Tenders.

Buffalo Sauce in a jar next to chicken wings

Sabrina’s Buffalo Wing Sauce Recipe

This Buffalo Wing Sauce is the perfect recipe for all things chicken as well as mixing it in many other recipes for a bit of a zing. It’s not too intensely hot like those other that you buy at the grocery store.

Recipe Card

Dinner, then Dessert

Buffalo Wing Sauce Recipe

Buffalo Wing Sauce takes no time at all, just 4 ingredients and if made right is just as good as your favorite bar's buffalo wings.
Yield 6 servings
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 5 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Course Sauce
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder
Buffalo Sauce in a jar next to chicken wings
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 2/3 cup Frank’s Red Hot hot pepper sauce
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

  • Place a small saucepan on the stove over medium-high heat.
  • Add the ingredients to the saucepan and whisk together until combined and bubbling.

Nutrition

Calories: 139kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 0.3g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 41mg | Sodium: 710mg | Potassium: 45mg | Fiber: 0.1g | Sugar: 0.4g | Vitamin A: 516IU | Vitamin C: 20mg | Calcium: 7mg | Iron: 0.1mg

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Chefs Notes

This wing sauce is delicious! The recipe calls for vinegar which can seem too strong at first glance. With all the butter and the Worcestershire sauce you need a bit more acidity to round out the flavors. The hot sauce does have a vinegar base to it as well, but this small extra amount is a great punch of tangy flavor.

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About this Recipe

Buffalo Wings (and the accompanying sauce) were created in a restaurant in Buffalo, New York called the Anchor Bar in the 1960s. A good buffalo wing sauce is a mixture of hot sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and butter. The butter smooths out all the flavors and creates the rich flavors of your favorite restaurant wings.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

  • The hot sauce you choose should be a version of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, which is a cayenne pepper-based hot sauce. Don’t choose something like Tabasco sauce, as the strength of the peppers used in making Tabasco is significantly more spicy.
  • Remember, if you are frying your buffalo wings or even baking them until they’re really crispy, you’ll want to only toss the sauce on them just before serving. This lets them stay crispy while being enjoyed.
  • There’s no need to marinate the chicken with this sauce ahead of time; it should be used when finishing your recipe.

Pairing Suggestions

  • Toss with chicken wings or boneless chicken nuggets.
  • Toss with fried or roasted cauliflower for a vegetarian option.
  • Mix with ranch or Blue Cheese Dressing as a salad topper.
  • Mix with ranch as a pizza dipping sauce.
  • As a sauce for Chicken nachos.
  • In your favorite Mac and Cheese, add in 2 cups of shredded chicken and ½ cup blue cheese crumbles with it.
  • In your favorite potato salad (add some blue cheese crumbles here too).
  • As a coating for chicken meatballs.
  • Mixed into cheesy chicken pasta.

Ideas to Serve

This sauce is perfect for your next tailgate or game-day party. It can be used on fried chicken, grilled chicken, or even just on drumettes. The sauce is tangy and buttery without the heat of a habanero-based sauce, which many wing places are using as their sauces these days. Keep the sauce in an easy squeeze bottle so it can be added to foods in small doses if needed.

Frequent Questions

Why add Worcestershire sauce?

The sauce needs a savory counterbalance to all the acidity to create a well-balanced flavor. If you were to just toss the chicken with the hot sauce alone, your mouth would pucker. It would be spicy and tangy instead of mellowed and balanced. You won’t actually taste the savory side. It’s like adding sugar to a tomato sauce recipe just to mellow out the acidity of the tomatoes. It doesn’t actually make the recipe sweet.

How do I thicken the sauce?

If you prefer your buffalo sauce thicker, add a teaspoon of flour to the pan when you add the butter. Instead of just adding all the ingredients at once, you’ll melt the butter first, then whisk in the flour and cook the flour for 30-45 seconds before adding the remaining ingredients and bringing it to a boil. With the added flour, you should find that your sauce is considerably thicker.

Can I add garlic to the sauce?

There are a few recipes floating around on the internet, including some that add garlic to the buffalo sauce. This would be delicious, but for an authentic chicken wing sauce, you can skip the garlic. If you really want to add the garlic flavor, you could add ½ teaspoon of garlic powder to keep the sauce consistency

More Sauce Recipes

Sheet tray of chicken wings coated in a bright orange sauce and a few celery sticks.

Photos used in previous versions of the post:

Sauce in a jar next to chicken wings
Collage with a photo of homemade sauce and chicken wings
Wing Sauce

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  5. Have made this several times and my family loves it! We always have hot sauce on hand, but not Buffalo sauce. This recipe allows us to make hot wings anytime!

    Reply

  6. Finally someone makes wing sauce the way we used to in the restaurant/bar that I cooked at. Her oven wings are spot on, as Mr. Ramsey says! Better check that out if your making the sauce. I live outside Buffalo, so I know what I’m talking about.

    Reply

  10. I added flour and made a roux to make this sauce a little thicker since it was going on super tender, juicy wings. WOW!!! I couldn’t believe how easy and tasty this was! Thanks so much! 🙂

    Reply

  12. Great wing sauce but just as great on bbq pork spare ribs, with a side of chunky blue cheese. All I can say is WOW!!!!

    Reply

  14. I always wondered where the term “buffalo sauce” came from. Haha. We love Frank’s sauce, but this sounds so much better! Of course adding butter makes just about everything tastier, doesn’t it?

    Reply