Julie Clark
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
My son is a bonafide buffalo sauce addict. Oddly we have never made it at home until now. I found your recipe and the instructions for adding the butter in the specific way worked perfectly. He is in buffalosauceheaven! Question: Has anyone ever tried freezing some? We went ahead and tried a few portions in muffin cups (the same way I freeze green chile that he puts on everything). We figured it was an experiment.
I love Buffalo Sauce and have made so many different recipes. This is by far the best I’ve made. I followed the recipe to a TEE, I almost always make small changes but this one is perfect as is.
This sauce is easy to make and using your technique of warming the hot sauce, then removing it from heat before adding butter is genius! Thank you for a wonderful recipe!
why use unsalted butter, then add salt? Why not use salted butter and not add extra salt?
I just made this sauce and it turned out perfect. I ran out of white vinegar, so used 1 tbsp red wine vinegar to top it up. Used the sauce on buffalo chicken wraps, and everyone at the table raved over the sauce!
This sauce was AMAZING! That was per a buffalo winger, I fed this to. They said it was the best wings they had ever eaten and asked for them again. I do think the sauce is better refrigerated a few days after making, then reheated and used. It gives the sauce time for all those wonderful flavors to work together and become one. I used it directly after making and reheated. My opinion is only important to me; see what you think.
Not a fan. It never thickened. It would separate as soon as I stopped stirring. Did not work as a dipping sauce at all. Tastes like hot sauce and butter mixed together, no real flavor.
I’ve always found recipies that use a (bought?) sauce to make another sauce frustrating. While there is nothing wrong with it, it would be nice (for a change) for a recipe to make a sauce, be that. Now I need to go make a cayenne pepper sauce.
This was absolutely wonderful! I’ve never made buffalo sauce before (nor have I ever bought any), and I’m so glad this was the recipe I tried. Perfect! Any ideas on how long it will keep in the fridge?
Have used Franks Hot Sauce before and its too spicy for our family – is there any way to calm the heat a little but still get the wonderful taste.
This sauce is AMAZING! I steam my wings for 10 minutes to get some of the fat off, then put them on a rack in the fridge until they are DRY. I toss them with baking powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper then bake at 450 for about 50 minutes. They’re so crispy and with this sauce they are perfect!
Made this today for lunch… absolutely the BEST buffalo wing sauce I’ve ever had… did not have paprika so used smoked paprika… cut the recipe in 1/4 so we have enough for 2 people for a couple of weeks… Thanks for this FABULOUS wing sauce recipe!!!!
I made this sauce. The spices are PERFECT. I used it for Buffalo Cauliflower that was dynamite tasting. I’ve done it twice now. Second go round I used half butter and half coconut oil…the coconut oil gave me a healthier kick but more importantly made the sauce stick way better. Might try ghee and coconut next time.
Thanks for that!
This sauce is AMAZE BALLS!!!! Question? U list the nutritional facts but not a serving size??
Delicious!! I followed the recipe exactly, except that I used Louisiana Hot Sauce. This is a keeper!! Thank you so much!!