The Hands-Down Best Pizza Hut Wings Flavor Outshines All The Spicy Ones

Craving a side of chicken wings on pizza night? At Pizza Hut, a kaleidoscope of different wing sauces is stocked and waiting to be slathered. But by our count, one sauce eclipses all the others. In Tasting Table's ranking of 8 Pizza Hut wing flavors, the sweet-tangy Honey BBQ took first place by a landslide. 

Ultimately, considering Pizza Hut's parent company Yum! Brands also owns KFC, maybe we shouldn't be quite so shocked that the chain's wings are so good. Unlike many pizza chains, Pizza Hut fries rather than oven-bakes its wings. The result is a perfectly crisp skin with ultra-juicy meat inside. At least, frying is the standard practice. Some Pizza Huts don't use a fryer; customers can check with their local location to find out for sure.

As we mentioned in our review, the Honey BBQ sauce offers a uniquely dimensional and complex flavor profile. It's neither cloyingly sweet nor overpoweringly robust, all-around impressive and balanced. Quoth our taste-tester, "I loved the contrast between pleasantly sweet honey notes and smoky barbecue, and both paired exceptionally well with chicken." By contrast, according to our taste-test, the spicier Buffalo Mild, Buffalo Burnin' Hot, and Nashville Hot wing sauce flavors were plenty flavorful, but arrived markedly one-dimensional on the palate. 

A Reddit thread echoes our adulation. Multiple apparent staff members name Honey BBQ as their absolute favorite of the chain's wing sauces. Others recommend mixing that dimensional Honey BBQ with the Buffalo Mild or Garlic Parmesan wing sauces for an even bigger flavor explosion. In another post dedicated to Pizza Hut's wing sauces, one commenter writes, "If you aren't getting honey BBQ you really ain't eating wings properly my friend." In our book, it's the best accouterment for those standout wings. 

It's worth mentioning that, in a previous Tasting Table taste-test of popular Pizza Hut menu items, the wings ranked somewhat poorly compared to other offerings. The chain's traditional bone-in wings ranked 7th out of 10, and the breaded boneless wings fell even further behind in 9th place. Still, maybe that's merely a testament to how tasty the higher-ranking pizzas, the experiential buffalo chicken melt, and the luscious triple chocolate brownie are in a side-by-side comparison. We're also willing to consider the possibility that we just got a lackluster batch of wings. After all, in another taste-test of 15 fast food chicken wings, Pizza Hut ranked much higher, leaving competitors like Domino's, Little Caesar's, and Papa John's in the dust. Its Honey BBQ wings may be a solid choice if this chain is the only one around offering wings on pizza night. But, admittedly, other chicken-focused fast food chains like Wingstop and Popeye's ranked higher, and might be worth considering instead for getting your wing fix. 

Still, the price is right. At a Pizza Hut location in Chicago, eight boneless wings dressed in that craveable Honey BBQ sauce cost $10.49, fairly standard if on the lower side for wings in the city. Pizza Hut's traditional bone-in wings admittedly come at a higher price point — $12.29 for a six-piece, which shakes out to about $2 per wing — but by our count, that Honey BBQ flavor quality delivers plenty of payoff.