Holiday Christmas Appetizers | Festive Chicken Wings Recipe

Festive Holiday Chicken Wings Recipe
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

 This appetizer can be as complex, or as easy as you want. You can marinade and deep-fry your own wings, or you can buy pre-cooked chicken wings at your local grocery store - like I did for the Good Day Tampa Bay segment.

I wanted to make these chicken wings “festive” by making them red and green. The red part was easy; most BBQ sauces are red. And you can use any type of BBQ sauce you wish. For really simple “BBQ Sauce”, I like to add a pinch of smoked paprika and Crystal hot sauce to tomato ketchup. Just make sure that the tomato ketchup is made with sugar, and not high-fructose corn syrup. Sugar caramelizes, HFCS does not.

I wanted to make the green sauce stand out, so I chose to make a spinach pesto, as spinach tends to stay bright green a lot longer than basil.

And no matter what flavor, I love to dip my wings in buttermilk ranch dressing - which is what I put in the middle of the platter.
Super-Simple BBQ Sauce Ingredients:
- 2 cups of tomato ketchup (per 16 wings)
- 1/4 tsp of smoked paprika
- A dash of Crystal hot sauce

Instructions:

1. Mix the ketchup, paprika, and hot sauce.

2. Cook, or heat your chicken wings. Put them in a large bowl and toss with the Super-Simple BBQ Sauce. Serve with ranch dressing on the side.

Spinach Pesto Sauce Ingredients:
- 2 cups of baby spinach leaves
- 1 tsp of dry basil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/3 cup of salted roasted peanuts
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup of olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Put all ingredients into a food processor and process until it’s a smooth paste. If too dry add more olive oil. Test for salt and season accordingly.

2. Cook, or heat your chicken wings. Put them in a large bowl and toss them with some of the pesto. Serve with ranch or blue cheese dressing.