Name: Singapore Hawker BBQ Wings with Chilli Dip Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 40 min
Ingredients: 10 pieces of Chicken Wings, blot with paper towels; 2 tbsps Ginger, about 1 inch; 2 tbsps Garlic, about 2-3 cloves; 2 tbsps Shallots, about 2-3 bulbs; 2 tbsps Dark Sweet Soy Sauce or Kicap Manis; 1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce; 1 tbsp Oyster Sauce; 1 tbsp Fish Sauce; 1 tbsp Honey; 1 tbsp Sesame Oil; 1/2 tsp Salt; 1/2 tsp Ground White Pepper; 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper (optional); 5 Red Chillies; 5 Thai Bird's Eye Chillies; 2 tbsps Ginger; 2 tbsps Garlic; 1 tbsp Vinegar; 1-2 tbsps Lime Juice, or Juice from 5 Calamansi Limes; 1/2 rind of 1 Lime (optional); 1 tsp Sugar; 1 tsp Salt; ½ cup Chicken Stock, unsalted

How to make Singapore BBQ Wings, hawker-style chicken wings with a chilli dip recipe included. These are the best Asian wings ever!

If you’ve been to a hawker centre in Singapore, you would notice there’s always a stall selling chicken wings. These Singapore BBQ Wings are not your average wings – succulent, smoky, and slightly sweet wings that will have you reaching out for another one before you’re even done with the first! They’re also always served with a tangy chilli sauce dip. That combination of savoury, sweet, umami with a spicy heat is delectable.

Whenever we have any sort of fun barbecue sessions – with friends, family, that odd school reunion – there will ALWAYS be these Singapore BBQ Wings!

What type of Chicken Wings

Chicken wings are of course, the classic type of chicken part to use. I’ve also used the marinade on other chicken parts with no issues. Simply increase the oven temperature to ensure fully cooked chicken parts.

Before pouring over the marinade, blot the chicken wings with some paper towels. This is going remove any excess moisture from the chicken skin, to help the marinade ‘stick’ to the chicken pieces and infuse it with flavour a lot easier.

Marinade

This chicken wing recipe is all about the marinade! It is a slightly long list of ingredients, but they are all pantry staples for an Asian kitchen.

I threw all of the ingredients in the blender and saved my muscles. If you don’t want to whip out your blender, simply mince or grate the ginger, garlic and shallots and combine with the other ingredients.

Kicap Manis or dark sweet soy sauce is a key ingredient in the marinade. Not only does it add a delicious salty-sweet flavour to the wings, it’s going to help caramelise the wings to a gorgeous dark brown shade.

Oyster sauce and fish sauce add a lot umami depth to the chicken wings.

A note to keep about 2 to 3 tablespoons of the marinade to one side before pouring it over the chicken wings. This marinade will be used as a final basting marinade for the chicken wings. I would not use the marinade that we used to marinade the chicken for this part, because we’ve already cooked the wings.

How to Skewer the Singapore BBQ Wings

At the hawker centres, the chicken wings are often pitted with metal skewers, this gives the wings the straightened appearance, instead of its natural shape. This would help to cook the chicken evenly.

At home, you can skewer the chicken wings with bamboo sticks to get them to straighten out.

Soak the bamboo sticks in water overnight – or for as long as you are marinating the chicken wings for. Doing this will help the sticks to not burn when you roast or grill the wings.

To skewer the wings, find the joint between wing and drummette, and bend and push the joint. Basically you’re dislocating the chicken wing. This will allow the chicken wing to be more flexible, therefore able to straighten out.

As a disclaimer, I usually do not do this! I would simply chop the chicken and separate the drummettes and wings. Not as visually appealing, but it does marinade and roast easier.

Roasting Time

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celcius, or 345 degrees fahrenheit. It’s a rather low temperature to cook the wings, but it ensures the wings are fully cooked through, but not dry on the inside.

At the last 10 minutes, crank the oven temperature to 220 degrees celcius, or about 425 degrees fahrenheit to get that good charred colour on the wings. I set my oven to the grill or broiler mode so it gets really charred.

If your oven do not have this setting, no problems. Let the wings roast at the higher temperature will also get you that nice caramelised colour, albeit no black charry bits.

You can throw this on the grill, of course, but I’m using my oven for this. If grilling, you need a little bit of skill to make sure it’s cooked all the way through, but not dry. Or too burnt on the outside. If you’re skill-less (like me), I recommend baking the wings in the oven first, and then throw it on the grill to get colour and crisp.

Can I make this in an Air Fryer?

Of course you can! An air fryer is but a cute, mini version of an oven. I would still to my same settings – 175 degrees celcius for 20 minutes – and increasing the temperature to 220 degrees celcius at the last 5 to 10 minutes for colour.

You can get away with a shorter time, but you would have to exercise your own judgement for this, as all air fryers – like ovens – differ in intensity.

Tangy Chilli Dip

The BBQ wings are tasty by itself, but as true blue Singaporean, I need my spicy chilli dip to go along with it. My recipe is actually also my chicken rice chilli recipe, so I always make extra to keep for chicken rice days.

My recipe has quite a fair bit of ingredients, but it’s so good.

Too much trouble for a chilli dip? I get it. I’ve had those days. You can make a good dip with less. Simply blend together the red chillies, bird’s eye chillies, garlic, ginger, apple cider vinegar, salt, sugar and chicken stock from bouillon cubes.

I used apple cider vinegar, because it combines the sharpness of white vinegar with the more sweet tang of the limes.

You can use water in place of chicken stock, but only if you really don’t have chicken stock cubes at home. If using chicken stock cubes, take note of salt levels and adjust accordingly.

Watch How to make Singapore BBQ Wings: