Buffalo Wing Sauce

I've fallen totally in love with buffalo wing sauce. It goes fantastically in the sauerkraut on a Reuben sandwich. It kicks butt on poached eggs. Any Mexican food benefits immensely from the addition of some buffalo wing sauce. Pizza? OMG! If there's a food that's "OK" while being chowed upon, 99% of the time buffalo sauce is going to amp up the measure of enjoyment by hundreds of percentile points! And on top of all that, it's SO easy to make.

Here's the recipe from Elle at Modern Minimalism, the best one I found after looking at about 20 different sites.

Ingredients to fill a 16 Oz. bottle

There are 16 cups, which is 128 ounces, to a gallon, so do the math with the ingredients below to increase the batch size. At the bottom of the page, there's an accordion with the measurements for larger batches.

Buffalo sauce
Buffalo Sauce!

  • 2 cups (16 fluid ounces) of Frank’s Original RedHot Sauce (not the ready-made wing sauce)
  • ½ cup plain, unsalted cashews, (sea salt roasted cashews work wonderfully and probably add a little something) I've just found that a lot of cooks are using cornstarch to thicken. For 16 Oz. recipe, use 1.5 or 2 tablespoons cornstarch instead of the cashews. No need for the blender or food processor if using cornstarch. Heat everything up in a pan, then add the cornstarch mixed with an equal amount of water to thicken it up.
  • 2 tablespoons rice vinegar or white vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon molasses
  • 1½  teaspoons garlic powder
  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon celery salt
  • 1 teaspoon liquid smoke

What to do with them...

  1. In a high-speed blender, combine Frank’s RedHot, cashews, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and paprika. If you have a few hours to spare, give everything a quick stir, cover, and set aside. Though this is not necessary, soaking will allow the flavors to meld and the cashews to soften a bit.
  2. When you’re ready to make your sauce, blend on high until you have a thick and creamy Buffalo sauce with no large cashew pieces remaining, about 1-2 minutes. There may be tiny specs of cashews throughout the sauce, but that's fine.
  3. Keep your sauce super thick, or stir in filtered water 1-2 tablespoons at a time until you achieve your desired consistency. For a spicier sauce, stir in 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper, adding more as needed to achieve desired spice level.
  4. Store extra Buffalo sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator, or freeze it up.
Different Sizes

 

Half-Gallon

  • 8 cups Frank's RedHot Sauce
  • 2 cups unsalted cashews
  • 1/2 cup white or rice vinegar
  • 1/2 cup Worcestershire Sauce
  • 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 3 tablespoons smoked paprika

6 Cups

  • 6 cups Frank's RedHot Sauce
  • 1 1/2 cups cashews
  • 1/3 cup white or rice vinegar
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 Tbs + 1 Tsp garlic powder
  • 1.5 Tbs smoked paprika

4 Cups

  • 4 cups Frank's RedHot Sauce
  • 1 cup cashews
  • 4 Tbs white or rice vinegar
  • 4 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 Tbs garlic powder
  • 1 Tbs + 1 Tsp smoked paprika

3 Cups

  • 3 cups Frank's RedHot Sauce
  • 3/4 cup cashews
  • 3 Tbs white or rice vinegar
  • 3 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
  • 2 Tsp garlic powder
  • 1 Tbs smoked paprika