Sweet & Spicy Slow Cooker Chicken Wings
Fix-and-forget wings in a saucy ketchup-sriracha-brown-sugar glaze. Three hours on low, thickened with a cornstarch slurry at the end.
Adapted from Tornadough Alli
Ingredients
people
- 2 lb chicken wings (wings + drumettes, not flats)
- 1.25 cup ketchup
- 0.25 cup sriracha
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup onion, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 tsp ground mustard
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 3 tbsp cornstarch (for the slurry — combined with water at the end)
- 0.25 cup water (for the cornstarch slurry)
Steps
- Mix the sauce. In a large bowl, whisk together the ketchup, sriracha, brown sugar, onion, Worcestershire, garlic, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, mustard, and pepper.
- Combine in the slow cooker. Place the wings in the crockpot, pour the sauce over, and toss to coat.
- Slow cook. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours. (Don’t use high — see Notes.)
- Thicken. Whisk the cornstarch into the cold water until smooth. Stir into the slow cooker. Cook another ~20 minutes, uncovered or on warm, until the sauce thickens.
- Serve with carrot and celery sticks and ranch or blue cheese dressing.
Notes
- Low only — never high. Cooking wings on high gives you dry, tough meat. Low for 3 hours is the sweet spot for sturdy-but-fall-off-the-bone.
- Don’t use frozen wings — adds 1–2 hours of cook time and dumps extra water into the sauce, making it watery instead of glazey.
- Heat level is controlled by the sriracha. The default 1/4 cup runs mild — bump to 1/2 cup if you want it properly spicy.
- Double easily for a crowd — just use a bigger slow cooker.
- Leftovers keep 4 days in the fridge in an airtight container.
My Notes
(your own tweaks go here)