The Ultimate Grilled Chicken Wings

By Chris De La Rosa
PRIDE Cuisine Specialist

If you grew up on the islands during my time you’d know that if you served a guest a chicken wing, that would be considered an insult. A nice thick thigh, drumstick or chicken breast (say chicken chest) was expected, to avoid the mumbles and ole talk after. However, for as long as I could remember I had a weakness for chicken wings. Coming to North america where there’s this ‘wing’ culture… let’s just say I blame my waistline on these juicy morsels of pure delight!

You’ll Need…

4 lbs chicken wings
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
3 limes (juice)
3 scallions
1/2 cup cilantro (chopped)
1/2 cup parsley (chopped)
2 shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 thick slices ginger
2 scotch bonnet peppers (no seeds)
8-10 sprigs thyme
1 heaping tablespoon honey

* Optional – Lemon or pineapple juice

* If making this recipe gluten free please go through the entire list of ingredients to ensure they meet with your specific gluten free dietary needs.

Place your clean and trimmed chicken wings in a bowl or zipper lock bag and get ready to make the marinade.

Give the scallions, shallots, garlic, parsley etc a rough chop and place it in your food processor. You can use a blender as well, but I recommend pulsing so you end up with a bit of texture and not a smooth puree. If you don’t have a blender or food processor, you can certainly chop/crush everything fine as possible.

Be sure to wear gloves when handling the scotch bonnet peppers, don’t include any seeds or the white membrane surrounding the seeds -unless you want the raw heat and wash your hands immediately after with soap and water. With all your ingredients in the food processor, pulse for a minute or two, until you have a sort of chunky consistency. Pour 2/3 of the marinade over the chicken wings and reserve the rest for later.

If you’re in a rush to get grilling, try to at least marinate  the wings for a couple hrs in the fridge. Ideally if you can marinate them over-night, you’ll get maximum flavors! Basically all you have to do now is grill them as you’d normally grill your chicken wings. I did then over a charcoal flame – indirect heat as the sugars in the marinade would cause them to char very quickly. About 30 minutes, then a few minutes over the direct heat for some color.

Finally I placed the reserved marinade in a large bowl and as I removed the wings off the heat I tossed them immediately in the marinade to coat the wings for that extra BOOST of goodness.. we did say these were the ULTIMATE grilled chicken wings!

This marinade will also be super on pork (especially tenderloins) and shrimp (don’t marinate though).. season and grill – baste as you do. You can certainly do these wings in your oven. 400F on the middle rack (line your baking dish with tin foil and brush with veg oil or cooking spray) – about 35-45 minutes?

This recipe is courtesy of Gourmand Award winning cookbook author and founder of CaribbeanPot.com, Chris De La Rosa. With over 450 printable recipes with step by step cooking instructions and demo videos, PLUS over 1 million social/fan connections globally every month, CaribbeanPot.com is the world’s #1 resource of Caribbean Culinary Culture. Connect with Chis on Instagram: www.instagram.com/caribbeanpot/.