Wings with Smoked Tomato Sauce
Roasted red peppers make a rich, savory-sweet base for wing sauce, which we balanced out with a bit of heat and smoke. This sauce has big flavors, and would also be great on a pizza, mixed into mac & cheese, or over chicken enchiladas. The recipe, as written, makes enough sauce for 5 pounds of wings.
We roasted the wings, too, and in the last 10 minutes tossed them with some of the Smoked Tomato Seasoning and put them back in the oven to finish roasting. You can serve these wings straight out of the oven with just the dry rub, with the sauce on the side, or tossed in sauce. We like saucy wings for the fun, shareable, messy, finger-licking experience. If you want to make this dish with cauliflower wings, swap the chicken stock in the recipe for vegetable stock and, if you’re making them vegan, use vegan butter or even olive oil to finish the sauce. We served this with a raita seasoned with smoked tomato for added flavor and texture, but feel free to serve this with your favorite condiment for extra dipping fun.
2 large red bell peppers, cut in half, stem removed, cleaned of seeds and membranes
1 large shallot, cut in large chunks
5 pounds chicken wings
1 Tablespoon olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
4 Tablespoons Smoked Tomato Seasoning, divided, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
4 ounces butter
1) Preheat oven to 450°F.
2) Place red bell peppers, cut side down, on a baking sheet. Put chunks of shallots in a small piece of foil and drizzle just the shallot with olive oil. Wrap to close. Put that on the baking sheet, and then put the sheet in the oven. Bake for about 40 minutes, checking after 20 minutes, or until shallot is completely soft and the red peppers are blackened on the outside.
3. Put bell peppers in a bowl and cover with foil. Set aside for at least 15 minutes.
4. Pat chicken wings dry if necessary and lay them out on parchment-lined baking sheets. Put in the oven, still at 450°F, and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes flip the wings, and put them back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
5. Once the peppers have steamed, pull off their peels. Tear peppers into pieces and place in your blender. Discard the peels, but scrape any of the juices from the pepper that accumulated in the bowl into the blender, since that is all flavor. Add 1 Tablespoon olive oil, chicken stock, red wine vinegar, 2 Tablespoons Smoked Tomato Seasoning, and 1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt to the blender. Puree until smooth.
6. Put butter in a large sauce pan and melt over medium heat; let it start to brown a bit, until it takes on a nutty smell, about 5 minutes. Add pureed pepper mixture to the pan, and cook together until sauce is hearty and thick, and reduced by about 1/3, 5-10 minutes. Keep warm over very low heat until needed.
7. Check wings. If the skin looks mostly dry and is starting to get crisp and brown, remove them from the oven and toss them with remaining 2 Tablespoons of Smoked Tomato Seasoning. Put back in the oven for 10 minutes.
8. When wings are crisp and dry and the seasoning has fully baked on, remove them from the oven. Toss with warm smoked tomato red pepper sauce and serve with carrots, celery, and raita or other side sauce.
