I love chicken wings. You love chicken wings. Everyone loved chicken wings. So when my friends at Popsy Popcorn dropped a few bags of their Smokey BBQ flavour over at my house, my first thought was – “can these become popcorn chicken wings…?”.

We’ve seen corn chips used as a coating before, but we thought we’d give popcorn a shot to see if we could get amazing crunchy wings as well. And we’re glad we did…

Ingredients

• 1kg chicken wings, with tips, drums and flats separated
• 50g of Smokey BBQ popcorn (if you can’t get, use regular popcorn and add a smokey rub to the mix)
• Cup of flour
• 4 eggs, beaten
• Salt
• BBQ Sauce (we use Alpine Sauce Co Memphis BBQ)

Popcorn Chicken Wings Method

1. Blitz the popcorn in a food processor until it’s a reasonably fine crumb. Some inconsistency is fine, as it will make the wings texturally awesome.
2. Add dry rub to the popcorn (if unflavoured), and a tablespoon of salt.
3. Place flour in a shallow dish, and beaten egg in another
4. Pat dry your chicken wing pieces, dredge in flour and shake off the excess
5. Coat in egg wash, drain and then press down into the popcorn crumb until well coated
6. Once all of the wing pieces are done, place on a tray in the fridge for half an hour.
7. Prepare your BBQ for high heat, indirect cooking. We used a full chimney of Heat Beads Coconut Shell briquettes, added to baskets in the middle of the kettle. If you have one, we recommend using a vortex, like the Kettle Kone.
8. Arrange the wings on the grill away from the heat source and place the lid on. Check the wings after 15 minutes and keep checking them. You’ll need to keep an eye on them, as the popcorn is quite a light coating that will burn quickly if let go too long. Turn if necessary to cook evenly
9. Once you’re happy with the colour, brush on some of the sauce, cover and leave for 5 minutes to set, turn the wings over and repeat
10. Once the wings reach at least 165F internal temp, they are done.