Give Chicken Wings Picture-Perfect Glaze With One Last-Minute Ingredient

Whether you're watching the big game or preparing a seasonal soiree, chicken wings are an ideal appetizer to please a variety of palates. A crispy baked chicken wings recipe starts with a handful of basic ingredients and yields a portion of oven-baked goodness. If you want to give your next batch of chicken wings a finishing touch that looks as good as it tastes, add a few knobs of butter to the piled-high plate before serving.

This easy addition works for a number of reasons. For one, regardless of your choice of marinade, a small pat of butter added to a plate of still-warm, saucy chicken wings will melt in the residual heat and provide an eye-catching, glossy look overall. It just takes a quick toss with some tongs to let the butter fully coat your chicken. In addition to making your plate of wings even more aesthetically pleasing, the extra fat provides the benefit of even more flavor.

Two to three small pats of butter should suffice, but you can use your best judgment based on how many chicken wings you've got on your plate. An herbed or garlic butter sauce makes an excellent dressing for your wings, particularly if you're not partial to spicy varieties. A little extra butter on top will go a long way. With just a few simple ingredients, you can make a batch of chicken wings to suit just about every poultry-lover's appetite.

The most important part of effectively using this ingredient is timing. You must add the final knobs of butter at the very last minute for a shiny and satisfying finishing coat. What's more? The wings need to be warm enough to melt the butter when you gently toss everything together. From there, you can add a sprinkle of fresh herbs like chopped parsley for color if you wish.

This additional ingredient will be especially useful at tempering the heat of spicier recipes. For example, the dairy in your buttery topping can provide a rich counter to your favorite boneless Buffalo wings recipe. You don't necessarily have to limit yourself to just chicken wings, either.

If you're looking for a veggie-based appetizer that still has all the flavors you love of classic chicken wings, try making a baked Buffalo cauliflower wings recipe and topping the plate off with a couple of pats of butter to finish it. No matter your specific wing ingredients, a bit of butter goes a long way for a big flavor.