Buffalo chicken is insanely good. If it rained buffalo chicken, I wouldn’t be upset. Until it got in my eyes. Then I’d be upset.

It has an extra special place in my heart because I was eating it (in dip form) when I met my husband. Thinking no one was around, I was scraping the sides of the dip bowl clean like a hungry hyena…as he walked up to say hello. *Gulp*

I can’t decide what form of buffalo chicken I love the most, so I’m going to share six ways to enjoy it. First, I’ll cover how I cook/prepare it.

A Note About Sauce

Taste wise, in my opinion, Frank’s® RedHot® Buffalo Wings Sauce rules all. If someone drew a bath of this with Ranch dressing, I would jump right in.

Unfortunately, since it has garlic powder in it, Frank and I don’t get along so well (garlic is high FODMAP). If I’m making buffalo chicken at home, I try making a low FODMAP version. This recipe from Fun Without Fodmaps, one of my favorite blogs, is my go-to. Made with butter or ghee, Tabasco sauce, and Worcestershire sauce, it’s easy to whip up quickly. I go light on the Tabasco sauce since I don’t tolerate spice well. It isn’t a perfect substitute for good ol’ Frank, but it gets the job done.

What’s your favorite buffalo sauce? Any homemade recipes out there that you use? I would love to learn more!

Making the Chicken

When I make buffalo chicken, I always sprinkle some Ranch Seasoning in with the sauce (I can tolerate the small amounts of dried onion and garlic that are typically in the dry seasoning – but be cautious if you are sensitive to these ingredients). If you’re on Team Blue Cheese and want to omit that step, no problem, it will still be great.

Check out this easy recipe for the slow cooker or this easy recipe for the Instant Pot from The Frugal Gals for the easiest way to make buffalo chicken. I’ve used both breasts and boneless thighs with success in each cooker. Either recipe will leave you with a heaping pile of mouth-watering buffalo chicken ready to use in a million and one ways. They have dozens of other buffalo recipes to check out when you’re done with those.

On to some of my favorite ways to use your chicken!

Buffalo Chicken Loaded Sweet Potatoes

I love to make loaded potatoes or sweet potatoes any time I need to clear out all of the leftovers in the fridge. When I top it with a mountain of vegetables, protein, cheese, or fresh herbs, sometimes I forget there is a potato under there!

You can certainly make your baked potatoes in the oven, but I prefer to make mine in the Instant Pot or slow cooker. Here is a great post on how to make “baked” sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot from A Pinch of Healthy. If I plan ahead well enough and have a few more hours on my hands, I opt for the slow cooker. The benefit of the slow cooker is that I wrap the potatoes in foil and stick a chicken thigh or two next to them and cook both at once without them touching each other. That way, I’m cooking dinner for my vegetarian other half and for myself at the same time.

I got the idea of cooking sweet potatoes and chicken in the slow cooker at the same time from the amazing Gina Homolka of Skinnytaste.com. The recipe that inspired me is from her One and Done cookbook, which I cannot praise highly enough!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

There are zero pictures of this dip because every time I make it, it seems to evaporate into thin air in an instant.

This is the dip I made the day I met my husband *swoon.* We were at a college football tailgate, but most everyone was already in the game. I hung back by myself to finish all the tailgate food, obviously. Even though he caught me practically licking the bowl clean, he approached me and struck up a conversation. I was shocked and pretty much instantly in love.

Thank you, Frank’s Red Hot, for this easy and fabulous recipe! A few notes about ways you could modify:

• Use a homemade sauce, like this one from Fun Without Fodmaps, if you are sensitive to garlic
• If you are using Frank’s – I prefer Frank’s® RedHot® Buffalo Wings Sauce sauce instead of Frank’s Red  Frank’s® RedHot® Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce (what the recipe calls for)
• Not a blue cheese fan, or don’t have any in the fridge? Use feta instead. This is my preference, actually
• If you’re a total bleu cheese lover, you can use bleu cheese dressing instead of Ranch

Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

A buffalo chicken salad sounds great, doesn’t it? Unless you’re too lazy to chop stuff up. Then you make buffalo chicken lettuce wraps instead!

The ones below are pretty basic (chicken, feta cheese, Ranch dressing, green onions), but you could spruce it up with tomatoes, corn, beans, even croutons if you want an extra crunch.

Buffalo Chicken Twin Tacos

Check out my post on twin tacos if you want to read the nitty gritty details of my favorite way to eat tacos!

Never thought of putting buffalo chicken in your tacos? Your world is about to be rocked. Don’t forget a creamy drizzle of Ranch, blue cheese, or plain Greek yogurt to cool everything off.

Buffalo Turkey Burgers

Okay, so you can’t use that mountain of buffalo chicken from your crockpot in this recipe, but DANG these buffalo turkey burgers from The Weary Chef are so good they had to be featured. You can use ground turkey, beef, or chicken for this recipe. When I first started cooking, this was always in the weekly rotation; these burgers come together so quickly and are packed full of flavor. I cooked them on the stove top, but you could definitely grill these up on a beautiful summer night.

Sadly, these moved out of the rotation when I realized Frank’s buffalo sauce and all of that garlic powder was making me ill. I gave up on these burgers and figured I just couldn’t enjoy them any more.

I was silly for thinking that! I just needed to make a few tweaks to make these burgers safe for my gut. Years after making the original recipe, I got to work in the kitchen and thought about what could replace the garlic powder. Chopped green onions (green parts only) were the perfect fit (fun fact – the green part of scallions are low FODMAP – just stay away from the white parts. Weird, I know!). As far as the buffalo sauce goes, I made this recipe from Fun Without Fodmaps that I mentioned above and it was a perfect substitute. Lastly, I pan friend the burgers with garlic-infused oil to give it another layer of the garlic flavor. Garlic-infused oil is also safe for me since it doesn’t have any actual garlic in it – just the taste. Wahoo!

Sliders and Paninis

You will quickly become the life of the party if you bring a slow cooker full of buffalo chicken and cute little slider buns. But if you want to really wow your friends, try leveling up with this recipe for “crack chicken” sliders from Eating on a Dime instead. I know this is a buffalo chicken post, but I couldn’t help but put in a plug for crack chicken. Just as easy, maybe even more delicious. And there’s Ranch. Of course.

You can throw your buffalo chicken in a wrap or on a sandwich, but I think it’s infinitely better in a warm, gooey panini. Check out my post on how to make the perfect panini every time!

If you are a buffalo chicken fanatic, I hope this inspires you to try it in a few new, different ways!