Crispy oven chicken wings coated in a tangy homemade BBQ sauce. You will be amazed at how crispy you can get these wings just from baking them. These chicken wings work great as an appetizer, snack or party food.

Chicken Wings

Cooking chicken wings at home can be quite a hassle when having to deal with the oil for deep frying them. I wanted to be able to have crispy chicken wings at home without having to fry them. Both saving on mess created and making them healthier. I needed to be able to cook the wings at home in an oven and have them stay crispy.

Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Wings

Normally when you oven bake chicken wings they wouldn’t get too crispy. The secret to getting wings extra crispy without using a deep fryer, is to use baking powder (NOT baking soda/bi-carb soda, that will not end well). The baking powder helps to draw moisture out of the chicken, less moisture means crispier wings.

The use of baking powder over traditional breading means that these wings are gluten free, egg free and dairy free. This is very handy when trying to cater for people with a range of allergies or dietary requirements.

Another part to making the wings extra crispy is drying them out as much as possible at every possible step. There are 3 ways in which we can help dry out the wings. Firstly we can pat the wings dry before we do anything to them. Secondly we can place the wings in the fridge, after mixing in salt and baking powder. The fridge will help to dry them out even more. Lastly we can start cooking them at a low temperature before really heating up the oven to make them nice and crispy.

The use of an oven safe wire rack is strongly recommended to help dry out the bottom of the chicken wings. The wire rack will also allow for the fat to drip from the wings, when cooking, stopping them from sitting in the fat which can cause them to not crisp up as much.

You may need to cook the chicken wings in multiple batches depending on number of wings and oven size. The chicken wings will shrink as the fat renders out so you can pack them quite close together.

BBQ Sauce

One of my favorite ways to eat chicken wings is covered in BBQ sauce. The wings should be able to remain crispy, if cooked well, even when covered in sauce. If you don’t want to make your own BBQ sauce you can use any sauce you have on hand. I particularly enjoy a tangy BBQ sauce (like the one in this recipe) with my chicken wings.

The amount of sauce to use is personal preference. This recipe will provide roughly 1 cup of BBQ sauce. Some people may find this to be too much sauce for the amount of wings. I suggest adding in a bit of sauce at a time until the desired coating is reached. The sauce also works great if you just want to dip the chicken wings in it.

Check out other Chicken Recipes