Buffalo sauce is one of the United States’ most beloved sauces. Though buffalo sauce is used in various dishes, it is traditionally and most commonly paired with chicken.
Breaded chicken wings prepared in a southern style are the type of chicken most associated with buffalo sauce. However, pretty much any type of American fried chicken works great with buffalo sauce. What type of side dishes can you serve alongside buffalo chicken?Â
6 Dishes to Serve with Buffalo Chicken
Buffalo chicken, while undoubtedly delicious, is a very simple dish that works better with a range of side dishes. The heat of the buffalo sauce itself can make it difficult to find the perfect accompanying side dish, but we have a few that can work great:
1) Carrot And Celery Sticks
Depending on how much buffalo chicken you have on your plate and how much sauce the chicken has been lavished in, you will find your buffalo chicken to be quite a heavy meal.
The oil from the fried chicken and the heaps of butter used in the buffalo sauce makes for the perfect comfort food but can be too much without a few fresh vegetables to balance your plate out a little.
That is where carrots and celery sticks come in.
Side dishes do not get much simpler than raw vegetables cut into easy-to-manage sticks. However, the sweetness of raw carrots and raw celery can add some much-needed freshness to your buffalo chicken.
Carrot and celery sticks are not out of place amongst buffalo sauce-based dishes anyway, meaning that you will not need to worry about any displaced flavour combinations.
In fact, in a similar way to hummus, buffalo sauce is often used as a dipping sauce for a raw vegetable platter as the sauce and vegetables work so well together.
2) Baked Brie
What better dish to serve with a comfort meal like buffalo chicken than the ultimate comfort food–cheese?
You could have any meltable cheese you like to serve alongside buffalo chicken, and it will only help to improve the dish, but a baked brie, in particular, feels especially warm and comforting.
Brie itself is a flavourful cheese but compared to other cheeses, like cheddar or blue cheese, is very mild.
What sets the cheese aside is not its taste but its texture. Brie cheese is wonderfully creamy, becoming even more so once baked, with a consistency that can live up to the butteriness of buffalo sauce.
The best thing about baked brie is that the brie itself is to be served with an array of other dishes. It will not be an odd thing to serve guests alongside your buffalo chicken and will not interfere with other side dishes if you wish to serve more than one.
3) Loaded Potatoes
The one thing that buffalo chicken lacks is a nice, filling starch to make it a complete meal.
You could stick with some plain old fried potatoes, but why not be a little more adventurous with your food and serve some loaded potatoes?
You can use regular or sweet potatoes for this side dish. Either type will pair well with the buffalo chicken.
Loaded potatoes are one of those dishes where there are not really any rules for what you should load the potatoes with. A range of cheese and plenty of garlic can work great or some finely chopped bell peppers mixed in with the potato can work too.
4) Blue Cheese Dip
Most of the suggestions on what to serve with buffalo chicken are intended to make the dish more filling, helping to turn the chicken into a complete meal.
However, buffalo chicken is the perfect snack to serve on a game night, and when you are serving the dish as a snack, you don’t want to go all out and make several side dishes.
A few dips to accompany the buffalo chicken will more than suffice.
Blue cheese dip is one of the more popular dips to serve with buffalo chicken, and for a good reason! It is one of the tangiest cheese dips around, as any blue cheese-based food tends to be.
Tangy flavours are always a winner when paired with spicy foods like buffalo chicken, but it is the salty punch of the blue cheese that makes blue cheese sauce such a good buffalo chicken dip.
If you want more dip ideas, then our dip ideas for fried pickles will also work well with buffalo chicken.
5) Greek Yoghurt Dip
Another excellent dipping sauce you can serve with buffalo chicken is Greek yoghurt dip.
This dip is perfect for those who do not fare well with the strong flavours of blue cheese dip but want something just as smooth and tangy to pair with their buffalo chicken.
Greek yoghurt dip is easy to make and can be moulded to your tastes. Greek yoghurt acts as the base of the dip, obviously, but you can add any other ingredients you like to the dip.
Garlic powder, citrus juice, olive oil, anything at all!
Or you can keep the dip simple and add a little seasoning to the yoghurt. Either way, the smoothness and tangy taste of the Greek yoghurt itself is enough to work well with the buffalo chicken and offer the same sort of completeness as blue cheese dip, just without the overpowering flavour.
6) Nacho Chips
The best buffalo chicken comes with more sauce than the chicken can contain, which is where nacho chips come in.
They are the ideal way to use up the rest of that delicious buffalo sauce so that none goes to waste. Use the sauce similarly to salsa, dipping your nacho chips in the sauce and being generous with how much you eat.
Plain nacho chips work perfectly fine as a buffalo chicken side dish. But, for that extra treat, grate some cheese on top of the nachos and microwave them to melt the cheese. Then serve the chips with the buffalo chicken.
Buffalo Chicken Accompaniments FAQs
Do you still have questions about what to serve alongside buffalo chicken? Then these FAQs might help you out:
You want a dip that will cut through the richness of the chicken, which is why a yoghurt-based or sour cream dip will work best. Ideally, look for a dip that has some added acidity.
Of course! If you’re looking for a lighter side to serve with the wings, which tend to be quite rich, then a simple green salad would work great.
Acacia may be a freelance writer by day, but they are a food fanatic by night. They are always trying out new recipes or finding different ways to elevate classical dishes. But their biggest culinary aim is to educate others on the basics of the kitchen so that they too can enjoy delicious food.
