Sriacha Sauce. Or as they famously call it on “Orange is the New Black” , “the hot sauce with the rooster on it.”
Sriacha sauce is everywhere now, it’s like the new “it” girl of the food world. It’s so popular that the mainstream food industry has started putting on their pizzas in hopes of grabbing a few extra dollars.
Before all that though, Sriacha sauce was a mainstay of Southeast Asian cuisine, where you could find it in practically every food. Sriacha is not limited to just the Huy Fong Foods brand of Sriacha though, originally the sauce comes from the coastal city of Si Racha in Eastern Thailand. The components of the sauce are simple: chili peppers, distilled vinegar, sugar, garlic, and salt (pretty much the main components of any sauce from that part of the world give or take a few ingredients). Sriacha is put on everything, you can often find it as a condiment at any Vietnamese or Thai restaurant. It’s essential for a bowl of pho and the reason why so many chefs love it is because as Ottolenghi said, it “has body and balance.” It doesn’t just burn your face off or make your food a spicy mess. It adds a great spice to the food without completely ruining your meal.
The “hot sauce with the rooster on it” brand originated out of L.A in the 80s by a recent immigrant from Vietnam who couldn’t find any hot sauce that matched what he had back home. He quickly made his own version of Sriacha and big bang boom you got Sriacha.
I’m not a big hot sauce person, but if I have to use hot sauce I rather use Sriacha than your typical tabasco sauce. Now what I’ve made here is simple and really addicting. These are standard baked chicken legs (coated baking powder for some crunch), but this dish is about the sauce. This honey and Sriacha sauce is perfect, I love sweet and spicy. The sweet always counter balances the spicy to deliver an addicting punch. The real key to this sauce is first boiling the honey and then adding the sauce. By doing so, the viscosity of the honey breaks down and the heat from the sauce takes a little knotch down by cooking it.
This is addicting and so easy to make, it’s perfect for a weeknight meal or lunch for the week.
Recipe- Honey Sriacha Baked Chicken Legs
Ingredients
1lb. of Chicken Legs
2 Tbsp. of Baking Powder
1/2 Cup of Honey
1/8 Cup of Sriacha
Method
Dry the chicken legs, place them in a ziplock bag. Add the baking powder to the ziplock bag, make sure legs are well coated with the baking powder.
Place the legs on a greased broiler pan.
Cook in the oven at 300F for 50 to 60 minutes.
Remove once the chicken skin is nice and crispy (it will probably not be golden brown yet).
Once the chicken skin is crispy, blast in the oven again at 400F until skin is golden brown.
While this is going on, in a small pot add your honey. Once the honey begins to boil, add your sriacha, stir for 2 to 3 minutes, allow to cool. Be careful because honey boils very fast.
Remove the chicken from the oven, coat with your honey sriacha sauce, then bake in the oven for another 5 minutes at 300F.
Remove and Enjoy!
- 1lb. of Chicken Legs
- 2 Tbsp. of Baking Powder
- 1/2 Cup of Honey
- 1/8 Cup of Sriacha
- Dry the chicken legs, place them in a ziplock bag. Add the baking powder to the ziplock bag, make sure legs are well coated with the baking powder.
- Place the legs on a greased broiler pan.
- Cook in the oven at 300F for 50 to 60 minutes.
- Remove once the chicken skin is nice and crispy (it will probably not be golden brown yet).
- Once the chicken skin is crispy, blast in the oven again at 400F until skin is golden brown.
- While this is going on, in a small pot add your honey. Once the honey begins to boil, add your sriacha, stir for 2 to 3 minutes, allow to cool. Be careful because honey boils very fast.
- Remove the chicken from the oven, coat with your honey sriacha sauce, then bake in the oven for another 5 minutes at 300F.
- Remove and Enjoy!
