Wingin’ It: Arizona Cheese Crisps as Buffalo Bills take on the Cardinals

Where there’s football, there’s food. There are many great options in the category of “traditional fare” but you might be in the mood for something different. Wingin’ It has you covered with a new Buffalo sauce-inspired recipe every week of the Buffalo Bills’ season. Get ready to win big in your kitchen as the Bills get ready for the Arizona Cardinals!

This marks two weeks in a row with a new city to add to our collection. Although “city” might not be the best word to use. The team uses “Arizona” and so do we as I provide a small tweak on the Arizona Cheese Crisp. Like wings, I assume you’ll get laughed at if you add the “Arizona” part while ordering in the state, but if you don’t add it for Google purposes you’re gonna get an entirely different product. Anyway, this week we pursue the beauty in simplicity with a Buffalo Cheese Crisp.

Buffalo Cheese Crisp

Serves: 4 - 8
Active Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

4 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 Tbsp hot sauce
4 large flour tortillas*
Shredded cheese blend, 16-20 oz**
(Optional) Other toppings like peppers/onions/ground chorizo

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Melt butter in a small sauce pan on LOW (as low as you can) and remove from heat; stir in hot sauce.
2. Poke a bunch of tiny holes in the tortillas with a knife and place them on a baking sheet.
3. Brush each tortilla with the butter/hot sauce mixture all the way to the edges.
4. Place tortillas in the oven; cook 6-7 min or until the top starts to brown***.
5. Remove from oven and sprinkle cheese on each tortilla—not quite to the edges. Don’t overdo it either. If you’re going with other toppings add those at this point.
6. Place back in oven to melt cheese and warm any additional ingredients, about 4 min.

Wingin’ It Tips

• *If you can find Sonoran tortillas I’m told by every online recipe that you should use these. In the absence of that go for the thinnest flour tortillas you can find. That ended up being burrito tortillas for me.
• **This ended up being cheddar and Monterey Jack for me
• ***This can vary depending on the tortillas you were able to find. Mine were at the 7ish-min range. If you can find thinner tortillas that’d be too long a cook time.

BONUS thing! Why so easy?

I had every intention of looking up other flavor profiles, spices, herbs, etc. that are commonly used in Arizona. I was imagining the possibilities of a complex and aromatic sauce. I was reminded of a post I saw on Facebook years ago regarding pineapple on pizza and it convinced me to keep this one simple.

Paraphrased, the argument was that people who don’t enjoy pineapple on their pizza are unable to appreciate the complexity of the flavor profile. When I first saw this claim the rebuttal came immediately to mind. “Complex” doesn’t equal “better.” With that thought in mind I embraced how beautiful a simple recipe can be to enjoy.

It’s easy to alienate people with a recipe. I’ll go out on a limb and assume no one actually made my ceviche. This is my “for everyone” recipe. Or as close as I can get. That thought has been a pleasant one all week. And hell—if you’re compelled to toss some chili powder and cinnamon in the butter, or add a little oregano into the cheese blend it’s easy enough to do. For this one time though, you didn’t hear it from me.