Caribbean Sorrel Chicken Wings

These Sorrel chicken wings are the perfect Caribbean air fried recipe to serve during the holiday/festive season. Bite sized pieces of chicken coated with a sweet and spicy sorrel sauce. No deep fat frying needed!

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It's that time of year again where the black cake, sorrel and ginger beer are being prepared for the holidays.

If you are one of my islands readers then you will know what I mean and find this post very much relatable.

Sorrel plays a significant role for many Caribbean islands and West Africa especially during the holiday season. 

If you are visiting friends or family during the holidays then are guaranteed to be offered some sorrel, ham (for anyone who eats pork) or black cake.

If you don't know what sorrel is then head over to my sorrel drink post (the link is down below) where I go into more detail about its definition, the origins and how to prepare it.

The diversity of sorrel

I've only recently, like say 2-3 years ago discovered just how diverse sorrel truly is. I used to be one dimensional with sorrel by only using it to make some drink.

Now I've started to explore other ways to use it such as to make cake, jam and now more recently to make a sauce for some chicken wings.

I LOVE chicken wings because they are so quick to prepare and great to snack on. Rather than bake a whole bird or use chicken breasts or thighs I chose wings.

For this recipe you will need some ready made sorrel drink along with some additional ingredients to enhance the taste.

To make the wings crispy, rather than deep fat fry them I air fried them instead and used some seasoned tapioca starch which helps to yield that crispiness.

Crispy or sticky wings?

You can make the chicken wings to your preference. If you want the wings to be on the crispier side, then simply coat the wings with the sauce so it acts like a glaze.

By doing so you will still get that taste of sorrel while retaining the crispiness of the wings.

On the other hand, if you want to slather the wings with lots of sauce to the point of stickiness as opposed to crispiness. On the other, you can serve it as a dipping sauce, that works too!

In essence the sauce can double up as a glaze or a dipping sauce if you wish to use it that way.

The steps

• Prepare the sorrel sauce by adding the sorrel, tomato puree and scotch bonnet to a blender and proceed to blitz into a smooth consistency (skip this step if you omit the scotch bonnet or use scotch bonnet powder instead).
• Pour the sorrel and tomato mixture into a medium sized saucepan on medium heat and begin to whisk until it starts to heat through.
• Once heated, add the all purpose seasoning (chilli if using) and raw cane sugar continuing to whisk.
• Mix together the tapioca starch and warm water in a small bowl.
• Once combined, pour the tapioca starch with the warm water into the sorrel mixture, continuing to stir until the sauce starts to thicken up.

• Place the chicken in a medium sized bowl and proceed to coat with the green seasoning, all purpose seasoning and black pepper.
• Add the ingredients for the flour blend (tapioca starch, all purpose seasoning, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder and pink salt to a zip lock/secure tied bag along with the chicken and shake the bag to coat the chicken. 
• 
• Place the chicken wings in the air fryer basket (you might have to do this in batches) being careful not to overcrowd.
• Set the air fryer to 180c/356f for 20 minutes, turning the chicken half way through.
• 5 minutes before the chicken wings are done cooking, open the fryer basket and use tongs to dunk the wings in the sauce then return the wings to the air basket and repeat.
• To crisp the wings, resume air frying for another 5-10 minutes.
• If you want the wings wet/sticky then pour the remaining sauce over the chicken wings before serving or alternatively, serve as a dipping sauce.

Notes and tips

• This is the link that you need for the Green Seasoning and All Purpose Seasoning. 
• Make sure to wash and dry the chicken as per Caribbean tradition - lemon/lime with vinegar.
• I recommend using passata or pure tomato puree as opposed to ketchup which is full of refined sugars.
• Any leftover sorrel sauce becan refrigerated but needs to be used within 2 days.
• When adding the tapioca/water mixture be sure to whisk continuously to avoid the sorrel sauce from becoming lumpy.
• Feel free to add some more additional ingredients to the sorrel sauce i.e more ginger, orange peel, pimento etc...
• The amount of spiciness will be to your preference i.e a whole, half or a quarter of a scotch bonnet.

Other sorrel recipes 

• Sorrel Drink
• Sorrel Jam
• Sorrel Cake

Other air fryer recipes to try

• Jamaican Fried Chicken
• Lemon Pepper Chicken Wings
• Pineapple Glazed Chicken Wings
• Air Fried Blackened Salmon
• Air Fryer Tostones
• Crispy Coconut Shrimp

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