Hot wing sauce

How to Make Buffalo Sauce at Home

Thanks to Buffalo, NY, we have buffalo sauce (hooray). There’s lots of play when making it at home, but you’re going to start with two main ingredients — butter and hot sauce. No wonder it tastes so good, right?

Melt butter over low heat — I like low since it keeps the butter creamy and there isn’t any risk of it browning. Not that brown butter is a bad thing, it’s delicious. It simply isn’t what we are looking for in our sauce.

When the butter has melted take the pan off of the heat.

Finally, whisk in hot sauce and garlic powder. Whisk until the sauce is smooth and red. We use Frank’s hot sauce, it’s got everything we’re looking for when a craving for buffalo wing sauce hits. That said, it would be fun to play around with other hot sauces (Crystal is popular and I’ve been wanting to try Cholula for a while, too).

We’ve also kicked around making our own hot sauce, but haven’t gotten there yet. I’ll keep you updated!

With three ingredients and 10 minutes, this homemade buffalo sauce is simple to make. Check the notes section below for inspiration on adapting and storing it. The recipe below makes a medium-hot sauce. For a spicier version, add some cayenne pepper — start with 1/4 teaspoon, taste and go from there. For a milder version, reduce the hot sauce by 1/3 to 1/2 cup.

You Will Need

16 tablespoons (1 cup or 8 ounces) unsalted butter

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 1/3 cups hot sauce, like Frank’s or Crystal

Directions

Melt butter in a medium pan over medium-low heat until melted. Remove pan from the heat to prevent the sauce from breaking.

Whisk in the garlic powder and hot sauce until a cohesive sauce forms, about 1 minute.

Use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 1 month — mason jars are great for this.