Buffalo chicken wings, or Buffalo wings as they are more commonly known, were first prepared at the Anchor Bar on Main Street in Buffalo, New York in 1964. Teressa Bellisimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar with her husband Frank, had the idea of deep frying chicken wings, soaking them in hot sauce, and serving them to their bar patrons with celery sticks and blue cheese salad dressing.

At the time of their creation, chicken wings were a part of the chicken typically thrown away or used for soup. The Buffalo chicken wing began life as a free bar treat to encourage Anchor Bar customers to buy more drinks and has grown into a worldwide appetizer and snack phenomenon.

Buffalo wings are unbreaded chicken wing sections (called flats and drums), deep fried, and coated in a cayenne pepper based sauce with other seasonings. Although many variations on this sauce exist, the original sauce is composed of only five ingredients: cayenne pepper sauce, white vinegar, margarine, salt, and garlic. When using a prepared hot sauce of vinegar and cayenne pepper, the recipe is simply a mixture of hot sauce and melted butter.

They are often served with celery sticks (sometimes carrot) with blue cheese dressing on the side. In general they are ordered by the dozen. A "single" order is one dozen, a "double" is 24, and a "triple" is 36. In some areas, wings are ordered in multiples of ten rather than by the dozen. For hungrier folk, Buffalo wings can usually be ordered by the "bucket", in quantities of 50 or more. Buffalo wing sauce can be made with a variable amount of heat/spiciness, and the names of these sauces generally correspond to the level of heat (for example, "hot", "medium", or "mild").

In Buffalo, the two best-known places for "authentic" wings are the (still operating) Anchor Bar and a bar and restaurant called Duffs. Although they are known as "Buffalo wings" in most of the world, they are simply called "chicken wings" in the Buffalo area.