Grilled Dry Rub Chicken Wings with C-Dub's Test Wing Sample

Tonight I fired up the PK Portable Kitchen outdoor cooker or grill and made dry rub wings with C-Dub's Hot Wings test sample. I'm friends with C-Dub on Facebook, and he was asking for folks to test out his new hot wing rub. I think most of the testers who posted up were general consumers. I'm a consumer too, but I write on barbecue and grilling and have this barbecue blog and Yes You Can Grill web site. That didn't rule me out which I think is a good thing. I'm a tough critic, so when folks let me check them out, they get what I really think as do my readers.

Dry Versus Web Rub Wings

I should probably first explain the dry versus the wet barbecue or Buffalo swings. That could be a little confusing.

If I'm doing wet Buffalo Wings, then I fry the wings and use butter in the frying pan with barbecue sauce to sauce the wings. These are wet and drippy and really yummy barbecue wings. Our wet hot wings here really are hard to beat.

On the grill, you are going to have a mess if you try to do wet barbecue wings, so you want a dry rub on grilled wings, unless you are using a cast iron skillet or perhaps a griddle with sides and just put those on top of the grill, and it's hard to get a temperature high enough to do the wings.

How to Make Dry Rub Buffalo Wings on the Grill

There are many ways to do chicken wings on the barbecue grill. I could talk about that forever, but I'll just go with the basic version.

I put my chicken wings (sans the tips which I cut off) in a bowl with buttermilk with C-Dub's Wing Rub sprinkled in. This is a very Southern techique (the milk thing) and adds moisture and makes the meat real moist and tender.

Afer a couple of hours in the milk marinade, I drained the chicken wings and then rubbed them with olive oil (vegetable oil is fine too) and then sprinkled on C-Dub's wing rub.

Grilling Chicken Wings


The Kingsford charcoals were going good in my PK grill. The heat retention is excellent in the PK. I had the coals offset meaning that I had hot coals on one end but none on the other in case the grilling got really hot which can happen with charcoal.

I put the chicken wings to grill close to the hot charcoal but not right over the flames. This is indirect or offset grilling. I let them smoke along for 25 minutes or so.

Then, I put the grilled chicken wings over the hot coals as you see in the top photo to crisp them up and to finish them off. That's really the trick with bone in chicken. You need to grill the chicken lower and then hit them with heat. This is easier to do with gas which is adjustable rather than charcoal where the longer you grill, the better and hotter the coals seem to get.

I do not Photoshop my grillig pictures, so you do get a real feel for what your food will look like. You see darker spots where the wings had more rub but not as much color where the rub was skimpier.

Right before I served the grilled chicken wings, I put them right over the charcoals to crisp them up and add color and flavor. That's where you see them in my photo.

What Did We Think of These Dry Rub Grilled Chicken Wings?


The grilled chicken wings turned out perfect in terms of the amount of time grilled. They were moist and tender. We could pull them apart or use a fork, and the meat was was really nice. The milk marinade and offset on the charcoal made a difference.

As far as the new chicken wing grill rub, it's not on the market yet. C-Dub's is just testing. I respect a company for doing that. You never know until you ask.

We found the rub to be really HOT. It was so hot that I could not really taste the chicken or the smoke. I had to get an ice cube and suck on it, since my tongue and lips were on fire. On the plus side, I am dealing with a sinus infection that has lasted several weeks. The hot dry rub by C-Dub's did help on that, since my nose and eyes were running after eating our grilled chicken.

I do love hot foods, so this one is pretty hot. Same with the boys' Dad. He goes for heat but found the wings tonight to be too much. My son who is a mild kind of guy when it comes to spicy foods just said, "A whole thing of celery and half a bottle of Ranch dressing for three wings. That is kind of a record I think. I hope I'm near a bathroom tomorrow."

Game Day Eats Wing Sauce Review - Thumbs Up for Buffalo Wings

I stumbled across Game Day Eats online and bought barbecue sauce and wing sauce. The GameDayEats bbq sauce was fabulous, so I was looking forward to trying the wing sauce.

My hot wings are sinfully delicious (fried and with lots of butter), so I do not make them often now. But, my son just turned 20, so I made buffalo wings for his birthday dinner.

Normally I use Louisiana Hot Sauce with the butter for my wing sauce, but this time I broke out the Game Day Eats wing sauce I had been saving.

Game Day Eats wing sauce comes in canning jars like my Grandma always used, so I popped off the cap. The smell hit me immediately, and I could tell it was going to be a great sauce. Some products - you can just tell. This wing sauce just had that fresh smell with a wonderful hit of heat.

GDE sauce is a bit thicker that the grocery store wing sauces but not so thick that you think you have barbecue sauce. BBQ wings are great too, but they are not hot wings or buffalo wings.

I made up the hot wings like I always do but with the new wing sauce, and they were terrific. Just perfect for a special birthday dinner for my son who is no longer a teenager.

Anyone looking for a fresher and better wing sauce can't go wrong with Game Day Eats. It really is delicious - just like the barbecue sauce I ordered from them. I hope to add both the barbecue sauce and wing sauce to my custom OpenSky grill store where I only pick out the best of the best products on the market. Game Day Eats more than makes the grade.

Best Chicken Hot Wings or Buffalo Wings Recipe Plus Tips

I do my fabulous hot chicken wings inside on the stove. Buffalo wings could be made outside over a gas burner similar to what you use for a turkey fry, but grills do not really provide the heat needed to do a good fry on chicken. And, hot wings or buffalo wings start out with fried chicken - or the really good ones do.



I first cut off the wing tips which really have no meat to speak of and take up too much room in the skillet.

Then I put flour with a little salt and pepper in a brown paper bag and drop the chicken wings in there and shake them up good.

While I am heating up oil in a cast iron skillet which holds heat better and also makes perfect drippings for hot wings, I put the paper bag with the wings in the refrigerator. This helps the flour stick on better.

When the oil is around 350 degrees give or take, I put the wings in to fry. The oil should be hot enough to sizzle but not splattering. So, adjust the heat as needed.

As the chicken wings get done, I put them on a plate covered with paper towels to drain and soak off some of the extra grease. It's not like Southern hot wings are healthy, but there is no reason for them to be drippy greasy either.



Before saucing the wings, I dump out the oil. But, I do not wash the pan or even wipe it out. Those drippings are critical. That is what thickens the sauce and makes the wings really good.



No. Pan drippings do not look yummy, but this is the key to great hot wings. And, cast iron skillets are the best for having great drippings.



I drop the heat on the stove burner or even turn it off and then add butter. I use real butter and use from a half a stick of butter to a full stick depending on how many wings I am making and also on the heat I want on the wings.

Tonight I am going a full stick of butter with really big and meaty wings. This is a base for rather mild wings, unless I add a whole bunch of hot sauce or wing sauce.



Once the butter is melted or close, I add my hot sauce. Most often I use Louisiana hot sauce, but tonight I have some Game Day Eats chicken wing sauce. I love their barbecue sauce, so I wanted to check out their wing sauce. As it turned out, Game Day Eats makes a really great wing sauce. I was impressed as were the boys. This is a homemade tasting sauce and gives a nicer punch to the wings.

I used half the jar of Game Day Eats chicken wing sauce which would be around a cup to the full stick of butter. That makes a mild hot taste.



To heat things up, then go like a half stick of butter and more on the hot sauce.



Once the butter and hot sauce are stirred up, then put the wings back in and roll them around in the sauce. Do a few at a time and put on a platter or in a bowl. Continue until all wings are sauced.



You can also do a mild version and sauce some wings and then add more hot sauce and do the last wings hotter. Just use a different bowl or platter so everyone gets the heat level they expect and like.



Yes. My Southern buffalo wings are as tasty as they look. The boys are always thrilled when I make hot wings. These hot wings were for my son's birthday, and he was really excited that I broke out the cast iron skillet and made one of his favorites.

If you follow all the steps, then you will have great hot wings. Even the little things make a difference on making killer hot wings.