With very few exceptions, pre-made buffalo chicken products sold in grocery stores are terrible. The TGI Friday’s Frozen Wings, and everything like them that I’ve tried are terrible. The deli’s pre-packaged boneless wings are terrible. Chips that advertise spicy buffalo flavors are often not bad… but they don’t taste like buffalo chicken strips

But the allure of easy to make/heat-up buffalo chicken products is strong, and so I’ll often buy and be disappointed by whatever new product I see. Recently, though, I’ve found a cheap and easy solution to meet my buffalo cravings. For less than $5 and with 5 minutes of total prep (including cooking), you too can make something that doesn’t suck.

All you’re going to need for this recipe is the following:

• Chicken Strips from your grocery store’s deli. However many you want. I’m not going to tell you how much to eat, but I usually go with 4 of 5. It’s best to buy these fresh, and not let them sit around for days.
• Frank’s Hot Sauce. I’ve never gotten the Frank’s Wing Sauce because it sounds gross. Stick to the original
• Butter. An amount, but probably less than half a stick will do.

I like to go to Dierberg’s for my chicken strips. They cost $7/pound and are consistently pretty good by themselves, without any buffalo sauce. I got 4 strips for this particular recipe, and they cost me $2.94. I already have Frank’s and butter and I assume you do too. So here’s what you’re going to do. Exact measurements are silly for a recipe like this, so just follow your heart.

Step 1: Melt some butter

Put a hunk of butter in a mug, or something microwavable. Microwave it for 40 seconds or so, or until that butter is all melted.

IMAGE

Step 2: Add a lot of hot sauce

Take your mug of melted butter out of the microwave. Add like… a lot of hot sauce. I weighed mine, because I had a scale lying around, and I used 40g of butter, and then probably 80g of hot sauce. I also put in a squirt of brown mustard and a squirt of Sriracha, because… why not. Feel free to take whatever liberties you’d like. Mix it for awhile. Be careful, because this can get messy if you’re not paying attention.

Then, heat that up again in the microwave, until the sauce is piping hot again.

Step 3: Reheat those strips

You may have bought your chicken strips hot 30 minutes ago, but they’ve probably cooled down a bit. Put them in the microwave for a minute. While you’re doing this, stir your sauce to make sure it’s well mixed.

Step 4: Sauce those strips

Put those strips in a bowl. Dump your mug of sauce on them. Flip the strips a few times so they’re all covered in sauce

Step 5: Eat ’em

That’s all. Put the strips on a plate and then eat them. They should still be pretty crispy, because you just added sauce like 30 seconds ago.

If you try this complicated recipe out, let me know how it goes. Let me know if you make any changes, and how those go. I’ve made these about 3 times at this point, and have yet to be disappointed.