Tangerine Thyme Dry Rub

Saucy wings are great, but sometimes you're in the mood for a dry seasoning. This Tangerine Thyme Dry Rub is bright, citrusy, and fantastic!

I’ve been on a bit of a wings kick lately... both eating, and getting recipes ready to post.

A few years ago, I was thinking of doing a wings cookbook, and just never got around to it.*

I’ve developed a ton of fabulous wings recipes over the years, several are on the blog already.

For wing sauces, I’ve done some fun and unique wing recipes, such as Maple Dijon Wings, Honey Jeow Glazed Wings, and Hoppy Citrus IPA Glazed Wings.

I’ve also got a recipe for Honey Garlic Sauce for Wings, a replica recipe for a very popular retail brand of prepared cooking sauce, here in Canada.

Honey Garlic is one of the most popular wing flavours in Canada, btw.

Finally, I have a single recipe for a dry rub, my Smoky Dry Rub for Wings.

I figure it’s about time to post one of my other dry rub recipes 🙂

*I’ll be posting a few recipes from it in the coming weeks, such as my Spicy Ginger Wings, and Whisky Honey Mustard Wings.

Tangerine Thyme Dry Rub for Wings

I didn’t actually develop this recipe for the cookbook that never happened, I developed it when I was doing a bout of the AIP Diet.

It’s basically Paleo, but further restricted to exclude things like nightshades - tomatoes, peppers, etc.

... do you have any idea how hard it is to find a tasty, nightshade-free wing?

So, I decided to develop my own. Aside from doing an AIP version of my Honey Garlic Sauce, I came up with this recipe.

I had some dried tangerine powder on hand (more on that in a minute!), and thought it could be a fun base for a wing recipe.

I wanted something green in there, so after weighing a bunch of possibilities, I ended up on thyme.

Thyme is a very strong flavour, so I added some parsley to get a bit more “green”, without overpowering the orange.

Garlic and onion powder rounded out the flavours nicely, and salt finished it all off.

... let me tell you: I haven’t done AIP in a long time, but this recipe remains a favourite.

These have a huge punch of bright citrus flavour, and are a fun departure from the more common wing flavours. All of the accent flavours work together to create a nice, complex flavour - love it!

Dried Tangerine Powder

A while back, I went a little nuts placing an order from Nuts.com.

When you’re ordering internationally, there’s always that pressure to make sure you order everything you want, so you’re not stuck placing a much smaller order a few days later, you know?

The shipping charges add up!

Anyway, we bought some FUN stuff:

- Several different nut flours, including hazelnut, for my Hazelnut Crusted Chicken Salad, cashew flour for my Cashew Crusted Halibut with Mango Salsa & Coconut Rice, and almond flour, for my Almond Crusted Halibut with Lemon-Dill Cream Sauce.

- A BUNCH of fruit powders, which I’ve been mostly using in Pavlovas so far, such as my Blueberry Pavlova, and my Tropical Dragon Fruit Pavlova.

Fruit powders are freeze dried fruit - or fruit peel - that’s been pulverized into a fine powder. They’re a lot of fun to work with, as they pack a lot of fruit flavour into a small, easily-dissolved powder.

Anyway, among my purchases that day was a pack of Tangerine Juice Powder.

This is the freeze dried juice of tangerines, along with some orange oil and acid. It is exceptionally tart, potent stuff... And worked *fantastically* in this recipe!

Air Frying Chicken Wings

As I mentioned in my Honey Jeow Glazed Wings post, we are *completely* in love with our air fryer, the Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer, 6 Quart by Instant Pot.

We bought it at the beginning of the pandemic, as a way to possibly make some of the freezer foods we stocked up on more palatable. It's been SO much more than that - and honestly, we've had wings and fries more often in the past few months, than I'd ever have imagined.

It's really become our easy, go-to "I don't feel like cooking" default meal.

The only fat involved is the fat in this chicken skin, so it's actually really not that bad for convenience food.

I was a bit worried that air frying wouldn't provide as good of a base for this Smoky Dry Rub for Wings, thinking that residual oil on deep fried wings were what encouraged the powder to stick.

Nope! It worked just fine! Just like with traditional deep-fried wings, the dry rub sort of melded with the skin to a degree, not remaining as an obvious, powdery, external thing.

So, if you have an air fryer, I absolutely recommend it for cooking your wings for this recipe. If you DON'T have an air fryer, I totally recommend getting one. They really do make fabulous wings!

I'd do differently - if I had my time back - is buy this model instead, as it's a size bigger.

How to Make and Use Tangerine-Thyme Dry Rub

Measure all ingredients into a small bowl.

Stir until well combined.

Store in an airtight container.

To use:

Fry or bake your wings as desired, then place in a large glass or metal bowl.

Add a bit of the dry rub - to taste - and toss well to coat the wings. Serve immediately.