Kimchi Wings
I modified this recipe for a friend who was on the Whole30 Diet and it came out fairly well. That recipe called for a lot of love-labor involving squeezing oranges for sugar-free orange juice by hand and less fish-sauce than normal because it would have been way too salty. So then I decided to re-do the recipe using the original version of how I do kimchi and swapped out the napa for Costco pre-cut chicken wings instead. It came out pretty awesome! I’m posting a recipe because it’s the 4th of July weekend and just in case any of you out there wanted to try this recipe to grill, it seriously was the bomb. I didn’t have a grill but I did just quick fry my wings to get that crisp. Hope it comes out successful for you!
Ingredients
- 24-30 wings, drummettes or flats or both but separated
- 1.5 cups of fish sauce
- 1 cup of orange juice (regular)
- 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, separated into two portions
- 1 large garlic, peeled and smashed or finely diced
- 1 bottle of korean red pepper flakes, coarse (고추카루)
- 4 tablespoons of mirin (this is optional but I like the extra flavor)
Directions
Combine the fish sauce, orange juice, garlic, and mirin into a large gallon-sized ziplock bag. Add the first portion of sugar. Then add about 1/4 cup of red pepper flakes. Taste: if it is still too salty, add half of the second portion of sugar.

coarse red pepper flakes
The sauce needs to sit for about an hour and should form a viscous (still runny) paste. If you feel like it is not spicy, add an additional 1/4 cup of red pepper flakes. This dish should not be sweet or even salty-sweet. Instead the sugar just cuts down the pungent salt flavor of the fish sauce a bit. Taste: it should taste like kimchi seasoning.

kimchi marinade
Combine the wings into the sauce and mix well within the ziplock bag. I almost always put the ziplock bag into a separate plastic bag. Sometimes the edges of the ziplock aren’t sealed well and it can leak. Marinade for approximately 12 hours. I marinaded mine for about 18 hours and they were pretty spot on.

marinading wings
Grill each wing, trying not to burn the skin but give it a good sear.
Serve fresh off the grill.

final wings
I probably should measure out the ingredients for the sauce, but I always taste my sauces midway to get it to how I want it so it never ends up being quite accurate even if I do measure it. Hopefully this will work for you with the pictures! Enjoy!
R/g