This tangy, sweet Honey Gold Chicken Wing Sauce will soon become a family favorite in your home.

You really do get a bit of everything with the flavor combinations – as a mixture of sour, sweet, and spicy tastes will get your taste buds going every time.
This recipe for your crispy chicken wings entrees and meals is inspired by the honey gold chicken wings made in Memphis, Tennessee. There you’ll find lots of restaurants and diners that make yummy hot wings.
And you don’t have to go to Memphis to sample their signature sauce, as I’ll tell you how to make it in your own kitchen.
Read on to learn how you can make this perfectly balanced sauce for your chicken wings. With just the right amount of sweetness, spice, and tang, you’ll soon love it as much as I do.

How To Make Honey Gold Chicken Wing Sauce
- Prep Time5 min
- Cook Time8 min
- Total Time13 min
- Servings4
- Yield4
Level: Easy
Ingredients
Material
Method
- Melt the Butter
Set your stove to a low to medium heat. Add the butter and allow it to start to melt.
Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi Then stir in your choice of hot sauce.
Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi - Add the Other Ingredients
Next, add the honey, soy sauce, chili powder, white vinegar, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and the chili flakes or crushed red pepper (if you choose to add them). You can also add the salt, or as much of this as you like to season the sauce.
Here, I added the honey and the soy sauce.
Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi And here I added the rest of the ingredients i.e the white vinegar, salt, pepper, chili, garlic, and onion powder. I decided not to add the chili flakes because my children don’t like spicy sauces.
Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi Keep stirring until the ingredients are wholly combined and have formed a smooth mixture, and the sauce begins to boil.
- Cook the Sauce
Allow your sauce to cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Make sure you keep stirring it so that it doesn’t stick to the saucepan.
You need to cook the sauce until it’s thickened. Finally, mix with your chicken wings and serve hot.
Jugo Feed / Claire Onidi
Tips For Making The Best Honey Gold Chicken Wing Sauce
- Substitute aprika for the chili powder if you don’t have any or can’t source any. Hot Hungarian powder is a good choice as it’ll add extra flavor to your honey gold sauce with its rich, peppery, and sweet taste.
If you’d like a smoky kick to your chicken wings, you could even try using smoked paprika. Or a Spanish paprika (pimenton) is slightly less intense than its Hungarian counterpart.
- Keep your butter cold until you’re ready to start preparing your sauce.
This helps its ability to emulsify – which is important for the consistency of your honey gold sauce.
- Melt the butter on a low to medium heat. If the stove temperature is too high, the butter melts too quickly and will thin too easily. This is because you want the butter to thin when the sauce is cooked.
The butter, along with the honey, keeps all of the sauce ingredients combined. If you don’t get this good emulsion, your sauce will split. And then it won’t stick to your chicken wings.
- Add flour. If you have trouble getting a thick sauce, add a tablespoon of flour. Stir well until you achieve the desired consistency.
- Don’t skip the white vinegar. White vinegar is a natural preservative. Adding two tablespoons of vinegar will help preserve the sauce. Don’t worry about the taste, you won’t smell it at all once the sauce is cooked!
- Adapt the recipe to your own taste. Although this recipe is based on the Memphis honey gold wing sauce recipe, there’s nothing to stop you from adapting it to suit your own preferred taste.
For example, if you like spicy food and want a honey extra hot sauce, use a hot chili powder. Or use paprika and/or add a little extra brown sugar if you want a sweeter sauce.

Storage Instructions
- In The Fridge: Butter-based sauce should be kept 1-2 months in the refrigerator. A lot of condiments and sauces that you make at home can be stored in your pantry, if they contain vinegar. This ingredient helps to preserve the sauce and stop it from getting spoilt. Since this honey gold chicken wing sauce contains vinegar, it’s on the safe side. However, it also contains butter. So keep it safely in the fridge.
- In The Freezer: The Memphis honey gold sauce can also be stored in the freezer for around 1 to 2 years.
- 326Calories
- 12.1 gramsFat
- 57.8 gramsCarbs
- 1.1 gramsProtein
Nutrition Facts | |
---|---|
Servings: 4 | |
Amount per serving | |
Calories | 326 |
% Daily Value* | |
Total Fat12.1 grams | 16% |
Saturated Fat7.4 grams | 37% |
Cholesterol30 milligrams | 10% |
Sodium2275 milligrams | 99% |
Total Carbohydrate57.8 grams | 21% |
Dietary Fiber1.5 grams | 6% |
Total Sugars53.5 grams | |
Protein1.1 grams | |
Vitamin C8 micrograms | 40% |
Calcium41 milligrams | 3% |
Iron2 milligrams | 13% |
Potassium239 milligrams | 5% |
- Piedmont.org The health benefits of spicy foods