Citrus Herb-Salt Crispy Grilled Chicken Wings

Some things just go well together. Like guacamole and daiquiris. Like hot fudge and ice cream. Like chicken wings and beer! Today we’ll show you the best recipe for crispy Citrus Herb-Salt Crispy Grilled Chicken Wings. C’mon, don’t you have a cheat day coming up?

Chicken wings are one of our absolute favorite naughty foods. You know the kind of food I’m talking about. The kind you make for the big game. The kind where you over-indulge slightly and you know you’re probably going to have a stomach-ache after, but you just don’t care because it’s so darn good! Yeah, that kind of food. You can’t eat it all the time, but sometimes you’ve just gotta have it!

When we are visiting family in Elmira, NY, no visit seems complete if we don’t have a wing night with an order of Bernie Murray’s “Often Imitated Never Duplicated” Chicken Wings.  They are just so crispy and so delicious.! They are unfairly good. And when we’re entertaining out-of-towners in our hometown of Cambridge, Maryland we love to take them out for wings at Stoked wood fired eatery where you order wings by the pound and they offer a variety of flavors from classic Buffalo, to Siracha and Honey, to Georgia Peach, to Thai Monkey, to Old Bay (a local favorite). Or even Peanut Butter and Jelly wings….yes, really. We haven’t tried those yet. As stated above, some things just go together. Peanut butter and jelly falls on that list, but peanut butter and jelly and wings? We’re unsure about this combo, but it is on our to do list because…hey…you never know. Everything was just a crazy idea until someone tried it and it worked.

THE PERFECT CRISPY GRILLED CHICKEN WING

What makes a perfect wing any way? That’s a solid question. One with probably a slightly different answer for everyone, but it’s got to have something to do with the seasoning, right? And then how about the crispy factor — do you like your wings smothered in barbecue sauce or do you prefer them crispy? We’re pretty big on the crispy factor and we love a good crispy wing with a healthy amount of seasoning.

And then there’s the dipping sauce debate. If you can even call it a debate. I mean let’s be honest, blue cheese has this thing wrapped up at this point, right? Is ranch dressing even still in the race? Am I forgetting some lesser know independent candidate that deserves to be mentioned?

Everyone’s entitled to their opinions of course, but I don’t understand you ranch dressing people. Our ballot is cast for blue cheese.

And then there’s celery, buffalo wings ugly cousin. Does anyone order a plate of wings so they can get the side order of celery? I remember comedian Gary Gulman doing a funny bit about this in which he said celery should make a phone call to buffalo wings to say thank you.

Public Service Announcement: You can serve or eat wings without a side serving of celery. I’m not looking do bash celery here, just keep it away from my wings. I mean, do we ever really eat it when it comes with an order of wings? Maybe as a scooper to scoop up the last bit of blue cheese dressing.

Back to the star of the show, the chicken wings…

We have a pretty good recipe for Asian wings which we slow bake in the oven, but since we’re into grilling season we wanted to try out some grilled chicken wings. We figured grilling might result in some nice crispy wings. I mean, we know you can get your wings crispy by throwing them in a deep fryer, but if you want crispy wings without having to deal with all that hassle, then grilling seems like a pretty good way to go.

Here’s what we came up with:

Citrus Herb-Salt Crispy Grilled Chicken Wings

5 from 1 vote

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Ingredients

• 1 dozen chicken wings (I usually buy party wings)
• 2 T . oil
• 1 1/2 T . citrus salt , divided
• juice from 1 lime , divided

For the citrus salt:

• zest of 1 lime
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 T . thyme leaves
• 1/4 c . ground pink himalayan salt
• Heat oven to 200F.
• Put ingredients on parchment paper in a thin layer.
• Dehydrate in oven for about 30 minutes.
• Let cool and store in a tightly sealed container.

Instructions

• Marinate wings in oil, juice from 1/2 lime, and 1 T. citrus salt.
• Preheat grill.
• Grill wings for 5-7 minutes per side. (High heat.)
• Sprinkle wings with remaining lime juice and additional citrus salt.