Grilled Chicken Wings - NOH Chinese Roast Chicken rub/marinade

The May snowstorms and June hailstorms have come and gone. It is FINALLY lush and gorgeous everywhere - green mountains and bright flowers in every direction! It may even stay in the upper 60s and 70s.

For grilling the chicken wings, it's ALL ABOUT THE MARINADE and the timing so you don't burn the hell out of the wings (by accident, EEK!). 

I've never been a fan of thickened starchy sauces, so that would make me a RUB girl. I love rubs, seasoning rubs! Sometimes you need to make something fast and SIMPLE requiring, like, ONE thing. For grilling, NOH's Chinese Roast Chicken rub (seasoning mix) is one of my favorites. It is tasty, smoky and light - easy easy EASY. Use one packet of NOH Chinese Roast Chicken rub "seasoning mix" per one pound of chicken. I got this packet from Tay-do in Salt Lake (find it at ANY Asian market). I have an annoying habit of doctoring up marinades/sauces, so keeping it THIS simple was actually HARD. Really, add nothing else!

Rinse your chicken (don't pat dry, keep dripping wet) and put in a large bowl. Let the excess water sit in the bowl! (...so you don't have to add additional water to wet the rub.)

Add the packets of rub. In this case, 10 chicken wings equals 2.5 pounds = 2 and a half packets.

Dump the powder seasoning  directly onto the wet, cleaned chicken wings. (Just an fyi: "NO MSG ADDED.")

Use tongs (or even better: gloved hands) and toss evenly until the all the chicken looks evenly coated/saturated and wet.

Let it sit room temperature for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat up the grill. I'm using a gas grill on High. Face the skin side down first. Shut the lid for a 5 -7 minutes. Keep the extra liquid marinade near to drench the chicken in once more before cooking the other side.

Flip to check for awesome grill marks. Yes, FABULOUS grill marks.

When the skin side seems to be cooked enough, showing nice grill marks (and not burned completely black!), dunk the wings back in the marinade for a second coat. Then arrange them back on the grill to cook skin side up (opposite side).

Close the lid and wait for the wings to cook through, about another 5 minutes (or less or more?!).

Serve immediately with something, anything - white rice or bowl of ginger porridge or cut watermelon or corn on the cob or a fun salad or whatever. Will not require any additional sauces as it is already super finger-lickin' GOOD. If you want to kick it up, add crushed chili peppers (pizza peppers) to the marinade at the beginning, but it is totally unnecessary. You'll LOVE this - YUMMM!!

A delicious dip for wings (and steak) is a mix of a few DABS of bottled fish sauce and a SQUEEZE of lime. No picture here, but trust me...it's different, but SO GOOD!