Julie Clark
Posted: Updated:
Buffalo Sauce Recipe
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
The best homemade buffalo sauce recipe. Made just as you like it with the right amount of spice. Perfect for buffalo wings, pulled pork, burgers and chicken fingers.
Over the past week I’ve been whipping up my husband’s love language. All things buffalo.
Matt pours loves buffalo chicken dip and pours buffalo sauce over everything. Pulled pork. Wings in the crockpot. Burgers. Potatoes. Popcorn. Salad. You name name the food and he’s probably put his favorite sauce on it.
He’s perfectly content with his jar of sauce from grocery stores, but I wanted to see what he thought of a homemade sauce. His reaction after these buffalo wings? He was in love. With the sauce itself and me for making the sauce. The homemade buffalo sauce allowed him to control the amount of spice. And the rich buttery flavor? Delicious.
About this Homemade Buffalo Sauce Recipe:
- Flavor: It seems silly to talk about the flavor, because if you’re here, you most likely are all too familiar with the spicy flavor of buffalo sauce. Buffalo sauce is similar to hot sauce, but is enhanced with other flavor, the main one being butter. This makes it richer than traditional hot sauce.
- Texture: This sauce is super smooth thanks to the butter, and I’ll teach exactly how to make the sauce that way so that it is not greasy.
Why is it called buffalo sauce?
Rumor has it that buffalo chicken wings were first served in a restaurant in Buffalo, New York, created by the owner Teressa Bellissimo. Pretty amazing that her special buffalo wing sauce became something that millions love so much!
What is buffalo sauce made of?
The original recipe is made of cayenne pepper sauce (we used Frank’s hot sauce), butter (to cool down the hot sauce a little), vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and spice.
But my favorite ingredient? Butter. We use unsalted butter and add a dash of salt if needed, but you can use salted butter if you’d like.
How to Make Buffalo Sauce From Scratch
This homemade buffalo wing sauce with a spicy kick is really easy to make in 4 steps. When we first started making homemade buffalo sauce, it was sometimes greasy. And no one wants that. But we’ve since developed a buffalo wing sauce recipe to give you the smoothest, richest buffalo sauce around.
Here’s our hint
Many recipes call for the butter being melted in and warmed at the same time as the hot sauce. But we find when we do this, the butter often separates and the sauce becomes oily, making it hard to mix in. If you add the butter after the hot sauce is heated when the pan is removed from the stove, it will be easier to melt the butter in smoothly. A creamy texture is always good!
- Take the butter out of the fridge, unwrap and cut it into tablespoon pieces. Set aside.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the hot sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, garlic powder and paprika. Allow the mixture to warm through and allow it to start to steam, but don’t let it boil. Stir it often.
- Once the sauce heats and starts to steam, and barely start to simmer, remove the pan from the heat. Add the butter to the hot sauce and mix quickly with a whisk to stir while the butter melts.
- The sauce will cool slightly as the butter melts, but it should be warm enough to completely melt the pieces of butter. Add a dash or two of salt if you’d like, to taste.
What if the heat level is too much? Try adding a touch of honey for the perfect balance of spicy and sweet.
What goes with buffalo sauce?
Buffalo sauce goes on appetizer recipes and even dinner recipes!
- Buffalo Wings (of course!)
- Chicken Fingers (this is a gluten free recipe and is great for paleo diets!)
- Smashed Potatoes
- Buffalo Chicken Pinwheels
- Drizzle it over pizza. Think chicken, buffalo sauce and blue cheese. Yum!
- Or use buffalo sauce as a marinade for chicken.
Looking for a vegetarian option? Make buffalo cauliflower! Simply roast cauliflower in the oven, then toss with buffalo sauce. It’s one of our favorite Meatless Monday dinners.
Storing Homemade Wing Sauce
This recipe makes enough to cover 5 pounds of wings with several layers of sauce and then still have sauce leftover for dipping. Be sure put any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Use leftover sauce to make our buffalo chicken casserole!
If the sauce separates and becomes “chunky”, it’s just from the butter hardening. All it takes is a minute in the microwave to soften that butter and make a smooth sauce again.
You may also love our blueberry bbq chicken wings!
Buffalo Sauce Recipe
The best homemade buffalo sauce recipe. Made just as you like it with the right amount of spice. Perfect for buffalo wings, pulled pork, burgers and chicken fingers.
Servings 16 servings
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cup Frank's RedHot sauce
- 3 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) room temperature
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Take the butter out of the fridge, unwrap and cut it into tablespoon pieces. Set aside. 1 cup unsalted butter
- In a saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the hot sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, garlic powder and paprika. Allow the mixture to warm through and allow it to start to steam, but don't let it boil. Stir it often. 1 ⅓ cup Frank's RedHot sauce, 3 tablespoons white vinegar, ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, ¼ teaspoon garlic powder, ¼ teaspoon paprika
- Once the sauce heats and starts to steam, and barely start to simmer, remove the pan from the heat. Add the butter to the hot sauce and mix quickly with a whisk to stir while the butter melts.
- The sauce will cool slightly as the butter melts, but it should be warm enough to completely melt the pieces of butter. Add a dash or two of salt if you'd like, to taste. salt to taste
- Serve the warm sauce over wings, on pulled pork or as a dipping sauce.
Video
Notes
- Refrigerate any leftovers. As you refrigerate the mixture, the sauce will thicken slightly (because the butter will harden again). Simply reheat the mixture in the microwave in short increments.
- This mixture makes enough to cover 5 pounds of wings and have extra for dipping. Yields about 3 cups of sauce.
- My sauce is greasy. What happened? If your sauce ends up greasy, that means that the butter got too hot and separated. It is still completely edible and will taste good, but next time, make sure the hot sauce mixture isn’t too hot before adding the butter. That way it will melt in smoothly and not be oily.
- Refer to the article above for more tips and tricks.
Nutrition
Calories: 104kcal | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Cholesterol: 30mg | Sodium: 532mg | Potassium: 32mg | Vitamin A: 415IU | Vitamin C: 14.9mg | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 0.1mg
Great recipe, but it needed considerably more heat! I only made a half batch, as we are “empty nesters” (YAY!) and made enough sauce for a dozen full air fried wings – 24 pieces. I ended up adding two tablespoons of “El Yucateco” red habañero hot sauce to give it the painful, blistering, endorphin fueled rush I love.
I love buffalo sauce flavor but it’s neveractually HOT, so needed my own take. This was the perfect “everyone gets a trophy” recipe. I dont love Frank’s so dug up another recipe to make my own pepper sauce base, rounded 1/4 up to 1/2 mostly to accomodate my 1/2 tsp min. Sauce is better than I anticipated & happily sweating from endorphins that think my head is being attacked by fire breathing buffalo’s. Thanks so much!
You actually want the dry spices to “bloom” in the hot butter. The water in the hot sauce and vinegar is the issue.
The reason your sauce is broken in every picture is because you simmer the butter and hot sauce. Butter and pan need to be just warm, if not cooler when you add hot sauce and other ingredients. You’ll get a smooth, consistent and non-oily sauce
Could you use red wine vinegar rather than white vinegar?
This is the best buffalo sauce I have ever encountered. When I made this batch for the first time I tasted it and thought oh my Loki I need to double the batch so I could use it for tomorrow’s lunchboxes for my husband and kids! And guess what, I still have to make extra batch because they devoured everything! Even when the extra chicken were gone they just poured it on top of white rice and ate that! Thank you so much for this recipe. This is going to be my go to recipe for buffalo sauce from now… Read more »
This sauce is amazing! LOVE IT! Simple and uses common ingredients. Great flavor. Kiddos loved it as well! A keeper in my recipe box/Pinterest board. Thank you!
Made this for the first time tonight. As much as I love heat, I was a little worried as to how hot it was going to be. But it was perfect. Served then with a homemade ranch dressing. Will definitely be making this again!!
How long does it keep for in the fridge?
What would be the serving size????
I do a dry rub first, then marinate them for 2-6 hours depending on my timeline. And I use Sweet Baby Rays hot sauce for a reason and garlic, red pepper and seasoned salt for the dry ingredients. Season and sit. Then do wet sauce marinade before baking. We fried in the restaurant I worked in, then tossed them in sauce. Both are good, but I like letting the sauce infuse in to the skin at home. You never get restaurant flavor at home so you’ve gotta figure out your own!
Delicious! I followed the recipe almost exactly – but left out the paprika. (because I was in a hurry)
Loved it! So did my son. Saving this one! Thanks!
This really is the best buffalo sauce. I love to make my own marinades and sauces instead of buying them pre made and we happened to have had all the ingredients already at home. We made the sauce with Louisiana Hot Sauce and dipped the raw chicken wings in then baked on 375 in a glass pan with some sauce on the bottom for 10 mins, then grilled 2 mins on each side, then baked some more for 25 mins and then finished it off with custom broil set at 500 F for 5 mins. My fiance said it was… Read more »
I’m right with you on the butter, it’s almost my favorite part. My boyfriend tells me all the time how he doesn’t like buffalo sauce (what???). I’m pretty sure he’s just never had a good one. I’ll have to give this a shot and show him how delicious it is!
My son has high cholesterol AND he doesn’t like butter, so I try to avoid it for those reasons. However, he LOVES Buffalo Sauce and has a difficult time finding ones that don’t taste buttery (I love the butter, as well!). Would Canola oil work in place of the butter?