This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy.
We make these Winger’s Sticky Fingers and Freakin’ Amazing Sauce in less time than it would to take get takeout from Winger’s! Only TWO ingredients in the sauce!
Featured with this recipe
- Ingredients for the Chicken Fingers
- Ingredients for Winger’s Sauce
- Make Your Own Homemade Chicken Tenders
- Recipe Steps
- More Ways to Use Winger’s Sauce
- Make it a Meal
- Recipe Tips
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Storing and Reheating
- More Copycat Recipes to Try
- How to Make Winger’s Sticky Fingers
- Winger’s Sticky Fingers and Freakin’ Amazing Sauce Recipe
We are huge fans of Winger’s Sticky Fingers and Freakin’ Amazing Sauce! We used to purchase bottles of sauce frequently, but now there is no need to since we have our own recipe. I can’t tell a difference between the real sauce and this. This has got to be the exact recipe they use in the restaurant! They are SO easy to make!
Every single time I make these, they get devoured in no time flat. They are always the first thing to go if we have a tailgate spread and people always beg me for the recipe. My kids absolutely LOVE them! They request them for dinner all the time. We can make these Winger’s sticky fingers in less time than it would to go to Winger’s and order them.
Ingredients for the Chicken Fingers
The trick to getting restaurant-style chicken fingers is to take some help from the store. Seriously! Here’s all you need for perfectly crisp chicken tenders:
- Breaded chicken tenders- Tyson frozen crispy chicken or Just Bare lightly breaded chicken strips. Both are in the frozen aisle at Costco or your local grocery store. These are specific brands only because we know for sure they work and make this copycat recipe even better!
- Oil – If you are choosing the frying method for cooking chicken wings, you will need this oil to fry them in. Air fryer or baking them is just as great and gives them a great crunchy texture with tender and juicy chicken on the inside. You will need oil at the end as well to fry the chicken giving it that crispy delicious outside flavor!
Ingredients for Winger’s Sauce
You’ll never believe this sticky finger sauce comes together with just TWO ingredients (and some water):
- Franks hot sauce – This is a MUST! This hot sauce is in our refrigerator any time we need it. Add it to your pantry staple list! Make sure to get the original not the buffalo flavor.
- Brown sugar – Add sweetness to the sauce as well as help balance the spiciness in the sauce.
- Water – Another agent to balance the sauce but also used for stirring in the brown sugar and helping it to dissolve.
Make Your Own Homemade Chicken Tenders
You can easily make your own fried chicken tenders from scratch! Here’s all you need:
- Chicken tenderloins or chicken breast, cut into strips
- A mixture of flour, salt, black pepper, a teaspoon paprika, and a couple teaspoons garlic powder.
- Egg – mix an egg with a splash of water and place in a shallow dish.
- Breadcrumbs – panko bread crumbs work great for crispy chicken tenders.
- Dip the chicken into the egg, then the flour mixture and finally the breadcrumbs. Fry them in a pan of vegetable oil. Fry in batches over medium-high heat. Drain on some paper towels to get rid of the excess oil. Then toss them into the yummy sauce.
Recipe Steps
- Bake chicken – Prepare chicken strips according to package directions. You can either bake or fry. We prefer the fryer method as it tastes more like how Winger’s prepares them.
- Making the sauce – Heat up hot sauce, brown sugar, and water in a sauce pot until all the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool at room temperature before adding to chicken strips.
- Fry chicken wings – Heat oil in a deep fryer to 375 degrees. Fry coated wings in hot oil for 10 to 15 minutes, or until parts of the chicken strips begin to turn brown.
- Combine sauce and chicken – Remove from heat, place chicken strips in serving bowl, add sauce mixture, and stir together.
More Ways to Use Winger’s Sauce
This is an awesome sauce that is used on grilled chicken, burgers, and kabobs. Pretty much it tastes great on anything that you can grill. We love dipping it in our Homemade Ranch Dressing or making a sticky fingers salad with sticky fingers on top.
Another of our favorites is dipping popcorn in this homemade Freakin’ Amazing Sauce. For us, it’s like being in a restaurant because whenever we go to Winger’s and they give us popcorn we always ask for a side of the sauce just to dip popcorn in as we are waiting. This is an addicting freaking amazing sauce!
Make it a Meal
These Winger’s original ingredients are easy to find and come together quickly! Simply heat the chicken strips, mix together the sauce ingredients, and fry the chicken one last time for a crispy and tender, juicy chicken with the best freaking amazing sauce covering it. Add fries, a side of ranch dressing, and a shake to make this a complete meal. These sticky fingers are also fabulous on a salad with mixed greens, fresh veggies, and ranch dressing.
Recipe Tips
Try these tips to make these copycat winger’s sticky fingers dinner even better! Take your breaded chicken to the next level with this freaking amazing sauce overtop. It is a sauce that you will be making over and over again!
- The sauce – Please make sure you use Frank’s Hot Sauce brand when you make it. Nothing else will taste as good or as close to the original.
- Make ahead of time – By making the sauce ahead of time, you can store it in the refrigerator in a jar to have on hand and ready to pour over top of the chicken strips. It is best to not pour the sauce when it is warm.
- Let the chicken cool – Also, make sure that you let the sauce cool to room temperature before you pour it on the chicken otherwise it won’t stick as well. See our instructional video below and get the recipe below that!
- Garlic powder – One reader suggested adding 1 teaspoon of garlic powder to the sauce mixture to help create more of the copycat meal.
- Less sugar – You can use a little less sugar and cook longer to reduce the liquid for a less sugary sauce.
- Dipping sauce- Dip your copycat winger’s wings into homemade ranch dressing or blue cheese dressing.
“Thanks for the recipe! My husband and the guests loved it! I cooled the sauce down before I put the chicken and it was perfect.”
-Lith
Frequently Asked Questions
For this recipe, we strongly encourage you to get the Franks Hot Sauce. This is the closest sauce that we have found that tastes similar to Wingers. Other sauces have ingredients that we have not researched or found to have the right taste and texture.
Winger’s sauce is two parts hot sauce, one part butter, garlic powder, Worcestershire sauce, white vinegar, cayenne pepper, and paprika that make up the sauce. If you order the sweeter wings, they have honey or maple syrup.
These are actually both the same in one! Chicken tender, chicken fingers, and strips are said interchangeably. The chicken strips and tenders are cut into strips before they are breaded and fried. This breaded chicken is not always made from chicken breast either.
Read Next: 35+ Easy Dinner Ideas
Storing and Reheating
Take your leftovers and storing in an airtight container for five to six days in the refrigerator. These chicken wings are even better the next day after they have been soaking in even more of the freaking amazing sauce. When ready to reheat, place it in the air fryer, microwave, or on a baking sheet in the oven. Warm up until hot!
More Copycat Recipes to Try
How to Make Winger’s Sticky Fingers
Winger’s Sticky Fingers and Freakin’ Amazing Sauce
Video
Ingredients
Sticky Fingers
- 24 ounces frozen breaded chicken strips, Tyson Frozen Crispy Chicken Strips or Just Bare Lightly Breaded Chicken Strips
Original Amazing Sauce
- ⅓ cup Frank's RedHot Original Sauce
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
Sticky Fingers
- Prepare chicken strips according to package directions. If you want to prepare them like Wingers does, deep-fry them. For a healthier method, bake or air-fry.
Original Amazing Sauce
- In a small saucepan, heat up all sauce ingredients until all the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature before adding to chicken strips.
Notes
- The chicken strips I use are either Tyson frozen Crispy Chicken Strips or Just Bare frozen Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Strips.
- The hot sauce has to be Frank’s. No other sauce will taste as good.
- You can make the sauce ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator. Warm it slightly in a saucepan until it thins enough to spread on the chicken.
mmmm yummy, the wings are to die for. Easy to prepare , there are month watering and you can eat them at anytime of the day.
Hi! I live in Boise too!
Love this sauce. We have extra, how long will it last?
It should last a couple of days in the fridge!
For a girl who isn’t chicken wings die hard, I may be a cover with this recipe! It’s so tasty!
I like the sauce on breaded fish filets. I have to try it with popcorn.
You have the recipe for the amazing sauce exactly right. I worked at Wingers for 19 years and was one of the original crew. We used to make all the sauce “in house” for the first few years. We had to sign a contract saying we wouldn’t give out the recipe. We used to make it a little sweeter by adding more brown sugar. The wings are actually coated with cornstarch, not flour, mixed with sauce before deep frying then tossed in more sauce afterward.
Thanks so much for the comment! Very good to know about the cornstarch, we will have to try that next time! 😀
I came back to recheck the recipe to make sure I didn’t forget it and I had Panko ready but I think I’ll use the cornstarch method this time, sounds awesome!
Hi, this looks amazing! So excited to try them. I would just like to know what sauce you used to dip them into at the end of the video?
Hi Tracy, Thanks for asking! We dip our Winger’s Sticky Fingers in our homemade ranch dressing. It is delicious! You can find the recipe here:
/buttermilk-ranch-dressing-recipe/
The picture I see is for the chicken fingers…but the recipe is for wings???
I used Frank’s Buffalo and it was amazing, I made (1.5x ) the sauce and used extra chicken. I also used boneless skinless chicken breasts and the cut them in half and beat them with a rolling pin to about ½” thick. So tender inside and so crunchy outside they were terrific. This is my new fav and I will making this again and again and again………………………..
The closest thing to Tyson breaded chicken tenders at my store were Tyson dinosaur-shaped breaded “fun nuggets.” Does anyone know if these are the same thing with the exception of the dinosaur shape? If used, will they taste the same?
Definitely not the same thing. You want to get the breaded chicken strips if possible.
What size bag (how many ounces) of chicken tenders do you use? I have a bag from Costco so I want to be sure I make the right amount of sauce for the right amount of chicken. Can’t wait to try this!
Just like the 2Lb. bags you can get at regular grocery stores… the Costco ones would definitely be too big. Think like 12-15 chicken tenders…
You had me at Frank’s 😀
Haha! I love it! I am also a fan. 🙂
This looks amazing!! Does the sauce store very well?
Yes, it does! It stores great! 🙂
Hi Just curious, what is the dipping sauce in the photo (and we dont have wingers here, but i have heard of them) Thank you!
The dipping sauce is usually ranch dressing or blue dressing.
Just made these, never been to Wingers because I’m on the East Coast, but I found the recipe on Pinterest and it looked good. There wasn’t a single piece of chicken left…so good!
So glad you liked them! They are one of our VERY favorites! We never have leftovers either!
These look amazing! I live in New Zealand so we dont get these here. Is there a substitute for hot sauce? I dont think its sold here!
Franks definitely tastes the best, if you are unable to use that, you could maybe get away with using a different brand… if there aren’t any other brands of hot sauce available I don’t know what to have you try! :S Do you have any kinds of pepper sauce there?
I came across this recipe the other day. I’ve never heard of Wingers before but I liked how easy the recipe was and was trying to put a menu together for the Super Bowl. Well, we loved them! They went over very well with 2 adults & 4 teens. I don’t like spicy food but these had the right balance of sweet & spicy.
Thank you
I saw they have the Tom’s hot sauce and Tom’s buffalo wing sauce. I just want to make sure I’m getting the right stuff. Is it the hot sauce or buffalo wing sauce? I think I saw 2 or 3 varieties last time. I love winders sticky fingers, so good.
It’s Franks hot sauce (the regular kind, not buffalo)
Thanks for the recipe! My husband and the guests loved it! I cooled the sauce down before I put the chicken and it was perfect.
So, we made this once and it turned out perfectly. Then, on the second time, our sauce turned grainy and ended up like sludge. Happened again just now on our third attempt and we are frustrated since we didn’t do anything different (we think). We don’t remember boiling it the first time and we did on the our failed attempts. I thought it might be that, until I read that someone brings it to a rolling boil. Any suggestions?
We usually bring it to a simmer– stirring often. We usually don’t let it boil for a long time, just until the sugar is all dissolved. Then stir often as it is cooling.
don’t know if this is the problem or not but try not scraping the sides of the pan when you cook it and also, oddly enough, don’t make it on a really rainy or humid day. Whenever we make candy (toffee, caramel corn, peanut brittle, etc) it turns out really grainy and sugary if you scrape the sides of the pan when stirring or if you have a lot of moisture in the air. I know it’s not technically candy but with that much brown sugar I’d say it’s a fair comparison! 🙂
My husband thinks I am the greatest wife in the whole world for recreating his FAVORITE (mine too) meals at home. Thank you so much for taking the time to figure these recipes out for us newlyweds who want to feed our husbands good food on a tight budget!
@Mommamia— I have no idea. It is definitely supposed to be smooth. You need to cook it long enough for the sugar to dissolve, not necessarily bring it to a boil. I don't know what to tell you! Hopefully it will turn out better next time!
Erica
I have tried this sauce twice, we LOVE the flavor, but it ended up being grainy both times. What am I doing wrong?
Since I haven't worked all year (injury), I can't afford Wingers, this is the best recipe EVER!!!!!! We make it all the time and laugh when we drive by Wingers…thanks so much!
I'm not all that familiar with Winger's sauce, but wanted a sweet and spicy wing sauce. This is AWESOME. I make my own boneless wings and this is now always in the sauce line up. 🙂 Thanks!
Chelle
Fantastic! It was just right
I made this for my daughter's birthday and now it's the favorite family birthday request. Thanks!
You can also bake these in the oven at whatever the bag says to bake them and then dump the sauce over them. Another way is to add half the sauce to them before you bake them and then the rest after… Then you dont have to fry and it taste amazing!
I'm featuring this recipe on Saturday at ucreatefoods.blogspot.com.
Thanks for the recipe!
This is the closest recipe that I have found!! I have made another recipe that I found on the internet for Winger's sauce many times before. It had a bunch of ingredients and was good but this recipe is FAST and FABULOUS. I craved sticky fingers my whole pregnancy and still can't seem to get enough of them. I do make them a little healthier by using chicken tenders coated in crushed ritz crackers. I bake them until they are golden brown and then slather this sauce all over and bake until the sauce thickens a bit on the chicken. YUMMY! I 7x the recipe so I could use a whole bottle at once. (I was cooking for 2 large families.) So I used one whole bottle of Franks sauce, 5 cups of brown sugar (don't think about it.) and then 10 TBS of water. There was ample to cover a large cookie sheet of chicken tenders plus have a bunch for dipping and enough to refill the empty Franks bottle for the next time.
THANKS FOR A GREAT RECIPE!!
Yum! We don't have Wingers where I live, but these sounded so good I had to try them. Awesome recipe! Awesome blog! Thanks!
Just made these for dinner tonight! AMAZING! I can't get enough of your blog! You're awesome! I posted the recipe with link to your blog on my food blog.
gourmified.blogspot.com
Drew,
try dipping the wings in 1/4 C. Corn starch, 1 egg (lightly beaten) and between 1/4 and 1/2 C. water. The batter will be a little lumpy, dont over mix it. Fry in a little oil until heated and crispy! This batter is light and works perfect for wings:) Add the sauce and dip them in ranch and you dont need to pay $10 for wingers anymore!
So I have tried using a flour/cornstarch rub and a flour/baking powder, and a flour/baking soda rub and none of them work very well. The one with baking soda was the best but each time I still cannot get them very crispy, it turns our more like the KFC breading. If someone could give some light on how to make crispy wings that would great, the sauce recipe on here is just fine so I dont need any tips on that, in fact I have tried the Wingers sauce and this recipe and cant even really tell a difference between the two. So my continued quest is to make crispy wings, because once I have that I know how to do the rest. I have searched lal over the internet and most people just say to cook them long enough but when I do they either get too dry, or too burnt. I'm getting frustrated here, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks all!
I’m pretty sure the frozen wings are the problem, especially if they are the big bags of flash frozen wings with a “glaze” on them. If you get fresh ones from the meat dept. you should be fine with what ever you do (you can even freeze them) but the big bags of wings have never really dried out enough for me to get them crispy, no matter how many times I’ve dabbed with paper towels, etc…
You are probably already doing this, but just in case…make sure your oil is good and hot!
Add vinegar instead of water and it will be even better! Delicious 🙂 Great blog!!
Try adding 1 tsp of salt into the sauce, and it will go from 97% to 100% tasting like Wingers. Also another tip is to bring the sauce to a rolling boil, and add the chicken right into it, it will coat perfectly. Remove and place directly on serving plate or platter.
I tried making the wings with this sauce. I used the store bought wings, let them defrost, pat dry, then fried them in a pan with vegetable oil. I cooked them for about 18 minutes but could never get them crispy, so I put the sauce on and baked them for about 10 minutes but that only made them a little dry, and still not crispy. I talked to a girl at Wingers and she said they put a batter on them, but if they do it has to be very thin because they don't seem like they are battered. I will try it again with using a little flour and baking soda rub on them, a very thin one and see how that goes. Any suggestions would be great. I will say this recipe is great, I made this one night then went to Wingers a few days later I can say they taste exactly the same, our family eats at wingers at least once a month and I cant tell a difference in this sauce and the restaurants. I just need to get the wings down, and I'll save myself some money.
Here ya go Drew. When prepping the wings, thaw completely, rinse and SHAKE dry. Do NOT Pat dry. While they are thawing, mix 2 cups AP Flour, 1tsp each Garlic Powder, Paprika, Cayenne Pepper and 2 TBSP Corn Starch in a gallon-size resealable Ziploc bag. Using 4-5 wings at a time, put them in and shake well to make sue they are evenly coated. Remove and place the wings intro a parchment/was paper covered trayand refrigerate for 60-90 minutes. When ready, deep fry at 340*F for about 11 minutes. Seriously, this Will give you the BEST restaurant-quality wings EVER with a perfect crunchiness. Tip… After removing wing from oil, let them sit for a minute or two so the oil soaks backinto the wings before rousing in sauce. The sauce Will struck better without oily aftertaste.
I know that my brother just buys the store-bought bag of frozen wings at the store, fries them, then puts the sauce on em. I haven't tried using any rubs on fresh wings for this. If you do it, let me know how it turns out!
Have you ever tried to duplicate the wings? I wonder if they are batter dipped, or just fried, or maybe a store bought variety could be slathered in this amazing sauce…… any ideas?
Thank you so much for posting this…we have looked for a recipe for this for years, but always just paid for the bottles from Winger's. This is perfect and so easy to make! My husband even surprised me one day by making it himself 🙂 We love it on our salads with breaded chicken and ranch. Thank you, thank you!
You have just made my day!!! We now live in a state where there is no Wingers and well, like one of the girls said earlier in your blog, she may have a race for woman of the year. My husband loves this sauce. And I can't wait to make these tonight. Thank you so much!!
I love this! My husband LOVES these and its such a good quick and easy meal and he still is way excited!
I've actually worked at Winger's and you guys are pretty close! But yes, I bet that tastes almost exactly like it! It's cool to see how many fans of the Wing-Ding there are!
This recipe rocks. We just had Winger’s takeout last night, but the cost was a little more than we like. Just made this sauce today to compare and you can’t tell the difference. THANKS!
Only the BEST chicken fingers EVER!!! I also made then with popcorn chicken for an appetizer & they were a HUGE hit!! This is my favorite blog to visit!!!
Erica! I can’t wait to try these. Shad and I try to eat at Winger’s at least twice whenever we come home. And then we take a couple of bottle back to our home to keep us through until next time. Thanks for sharing!
Yum! We had this tonight and your right.. it’s smack on!
I just made these tonight and they were fab!! My husband was sceptical that they would taste just like wingers but they did!! Thank you! I love your Blog!
Probably the best are the Tyson brand breaded chicken breasts. They are in the frozen food isle by the chicken nuggets.
I can’t seem to find the right kind of chicken. What brand and what kind of chicken do you use?
I was soo excited when I saw the recipe for Sticky Fingers!!! I moved away from Utah a few months ago and have craved their Sticky Fingers salad since. I made your recipe and it tastes just like Wingers!!! Thanks!!
I just used original. I’m sure either will work. I have tried both and I can’t really tell a big difference.
Can you tell me if you use light or dark brown sugar?
We use light. Hope this helps!
There are 2 kinds of Franks- Buffalo and Original. Which one do you use?
Okay I made them! So spot ON! I did have to search for franks a little at my store. I asked and there was a few places they kept different kinds of hot sauce so if you can’t find ask or go to another store because franks is where it’s at. BTW I LOVE YOU AND YOUR BLOG!
Thanks Sarah! I am so glad you liked them.. and the blog.. and me! haha you are way too nice 🙂 So are you woman of the year at your house? I sure hope so! Making a meal that a husband loves through and through is not an easy task!
Your missing an ingredient… 1 tps garlic powder.
Good to know— thank you! Haven’t tried it with garlic powder but I am sure it tastes great
Franks hot sauce is near the BBQ sauce in pretty much any grocery store. I have found it at Smiths, WalMart, Albertsons.. etc..
We go through bottles of Franks at our house!
I want to make these for the Super Bowl but I am curious where do you get the Franks Hot Sauce?? Thanks, cant wait to try them.
you can get frank’s hot sauce at any grocery store
Not in Hawai’i. We have to order it from Amazon. Worth the wait though.
I have never heard of or been to Winger’s but I made this sauce and put it on Chicken fingers for my boyfriend last night and he (who is probably the pickyest person ever) loved it!
Love your site and all the recipes!
I am so freeking out right now! My husband and i live in a place where there is NO Winger’s! I do think that should be against the law. We look forward to our once a year trip to see our parents in another state just to go and enjoy the wings! I’m so so happy about this I’m going to surprise my husband and make them tomorrow. You might have just made me woman of the year at my house. Thanks your great!
Oh my goodness, we love their wings!! I can’t wait to try these, thanks so much for posting!
Am I the only one who does not see the recipe?!?
Ahh, you are right.. for some reason this is missing :/ I will get right on it!
Is the recipe up yet? Cause I can’t see it either.
It really should be fixed now! Thanks for your patience. You may have to refresh the page to get it to pull up.
You’re directions in this recipe r confusing. Are we making tenders or wings?
Hi Kim- we apologize for the confusion. This is for sticky fingers. I corrected the step in the recipe where we referred to them as “wings”. Hope this helps!
I don’t see the recipe either!
It really should be fixed now! Thanks for your patience. You may have to refresh the page to get it to pull up.
Used to work at Winger’s in the late 90s. Pretty much got it. Don’t remember putting water in it. Less sugar, and would simmer for 30 to 45 min to reduce.
Thanks for sharing! We are always looking to see how we can get it as close as we can to the original. This is a great help!