A few weeks ago I discovered that cornstarch makes the most wonderfully crispy surface for tofu and that discovery totally rocked my world. Wellllll this week I happened across this post on Cookful.com, which describes a similar process for chicken. Since I had some leftover chicken drumsticks in my freezer, I was all over that. After making my Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Drumsticks, I slathered them in a sweet and spicy honey sriracha sauce and I was in HEAVEN.
How to Make Crispy Oven Baked Chicken
The process is so simple. Just coat your bone-in, skin-on chicken with a little corn starch before baking. The cornstarch and fat from the skin combine to make a wonderfully crispy exterior, without deep frying!
What Sauce Can I Use?
I whipped up a simple honey sriracha wing sauce for these Crispy Baked Honey Sriracha Chicken Drumsticks, but you could just as easily drench them in your favorite BBQ sauce, store bought wing sauce, or a homemade raspberry balsamic sauce. Report back with your favorite sauce so I can have an excuse to make these again, k? Thx!
Can I Use a Different Cut of Chicken?
This technique is originally meant for wings (see my Raspberry Balsamic Baked Chicken Wings), which are much smaller than drumsticks, but I found that the skin crisped up nicely with drumsticks as well, and the meat inside was tender and juicy. I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t do the same thing with thighs or breasts. Just make sure you’re using bone-in, skin-on chicken and you’ll need to adjust the cooking time depending on the size of the pieces.
Honey Sriracha Chicken Drumsticks
Servings 6Ingredients
- 6 chicken drumsticks (about 1.75 lbs.) ($3.54)
- Pinch of salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch ($0.08)
- 1/4 cup sriracha ($0.34)
- 2 Tbsp butter ($0.22)
- 2 Tbsp honey ($0.24)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a baking sheet with foil, then top it with wire cooling racks to hold the chicken up off the baking sheet. For easy cleaning, spritz the wire racks with non-stick spray.
- Place the chicken drumsticks in a large bowl and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Sprinkle the cornstarch over top, then stir until the drumsticks are evenly coated in cornstarch.
- Place the coated chicken pieces on the prepared baking sheet. Bake the drumsticks for about 50 minutes, or until the surface is golden brown and crispy.
- While the chicken is in the oven, combine the sriracha, butter, and honey in a small sauce pot. Heat over a low flame until the butter is melted and the sauce is smooth. Set the sauce aside.
- When the chicken comes out of the oven, brush the sauce liberally over the surface of the chicken, then serve.
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Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Scroll down for the step by step photos!
How to Make Chicken Drumsticks – Step by Step Photos
Start by preheating the oven to 400ºF. Place six skin-on chicken drumsticks in a large bowl and season with a pinch of salt and pepper.
Sprinkle 2 Tbsp cornstarch over the chicken, then stir until the pieces are evenly coated.
Line a baking sheet with foil, then place two wire cooling racks on top. (For even easier cleanup, you can spritz the racks with non-stick spray.) Place the cornstarch coated chicken pieces on the racks.
Bake for about 50 minutes, or until they’re golden and crispy. They won’t get super dark, and some spots that had extra thick cornstarch may still be white.
While the chicken is in the oven, prepare the wing sauce. Simply place 1/4 cup sriracha, 2 Tbsp butter, and 2 Tbsp honey in a small sauce pot. Stir and heat over a low flame until the butter is melted and the sauce is smooth. This only takes about 5 minutes.
Back to those gorgeous drumsticks…
Slather that delicious honey sriracha sauce all over the wings. As I mentioned earlier, you could actually use any type of sauce that you want… BBQ is an easy choice.
And now your amazing Crispy Baked Honey Sriracha Chicken Drumsticks are ready to eat!
I mean seriously, how easy was that?? I can’t wait to try more versions…
Made these tonight. Ah May Zing!!!!!!
I just made these and they are great!
i’d tried this recipe several times already myself, but i made these again tonight, but for the first time for the family that i live with and they thought the result was delicious! they look forward to seeing if the cornstarch trick will work with wings for their superbowl party next year. thanks for another delicious recipe Beth!
i sub. the siracha with buffalo sauce and it was amazing! great receipe
I made this recipe and loved it. Easy way to whip up some chicken for a bunch of guests.
very good!!!! i added more sriracha to the recipe and it was great!
I had these at a bar last night. Was wondering how they were made and had forgotten that you’d posted the recipe. Thanks for the reminder :D
WOW!!! The Crispy Baked Honey Sriracha Chicken Drumsticks is out-of-this world delicious!!! Instead of using honey and sriracha, I used buffalo sauce and followed the recipe. I served the chicken drumsticks with blue cheese mashed potatoes. I’m definitely going to make this recipe again, but will have to experiment with different sauces, such as teriyaki. Thank you so much, Beth!!! :-)
This is one of my favs! Easy and delicous!
Tried this with half red sriracha w/ some Thai dried chili and half green sriracha w/ Japanese seven spice. Made an easy Ethiopian potato, carrot stew called atkilt wat
LOVE this recipe! I’ve tried this with wings too!
This is such a tasty chiken recipe using budget friendly ingredients mostly found in every homes’ kitchen. I defenitely recommend this!
I made these for my family a couple of weeks ago and they were DELICIOUS! Thanks for a great recipe that I will definitely make again! Everyone loved them.
Made this last night – the sauce was super tasty. But the chicken didn’t get crispy… I was roasting a cookie sheet (separate from the sheet w the chicken on it) of broccoli at the same time. I’m wondering if have two racks of stuff going at the same time messed up the air flow in the oven or something. Any body have any thoughts? I’m going to try again with just the chicken in the over :). Thanks!
Hmm, that’s a possibility… But maybe it just needed more time in the oven?
The moisture from the broccoli likely produced steam which prevented crisping.
This is on my menu plan for the week! what do you think would make a good dish for this? Thanks!
Hmm, maybe something simple like roasted broccoli?