Skip the restaurant and make these Best Air Fryer Chicken Wings at home! Featuring perfectly tender and crispy chicken along with all of your favorite sauces, you won’t even notice these wings are homemade and healthy!
When it comes to easy appetizer recipes, we’ve got you covered! Try our Baked Garlic Parmesan Potato Wedges, easy homemade Mexican Salsa, Slow Cooker Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs, and Easy Buffalo Cauliflower Wings.
Why This Recipe Works
Air Fried to Perfection: Instead of using a fryer, these best ever chicken wings are made in an air fryer! It is so much easier to use an air fryer instead of attempting to fry chicken wings at home. The wings still come out crispy and so delicious thanks to the convection method of the air fryer. Plus, air frying doesn’t add the extra calories that frying does!
Super Simple: While at first glance, making homemade wings sounds like a difficult process, these are super easy to whip up. My best air fryer chicken wings recipe uses minimal ingredients and uses the power of the air fryer to your advantage. You can have the perfect meal or appetizer on the table in just 20 minutes!
Sauce Heaven: One of the main reasons I love wings is because of the sauces. You can douse these wings in whatever sauce you prefer. My two favorites are Buffalo Sauce and BBQ Sauce! You can also find a lot of really great bottled sauces at the store, to make this recipe even easier.
Ingredients
This air fryer chicken wings recipe uses minimal ingredients to make them as easy as possible to make! Here’s what you’ll need:
- Chicken Wings: You can buy just the wings or find a mix of wings and drumsticks. Sometimes these are labeled as party wings in the meat section!
- Salt & Pepper: Simply season your wings with salt and pepper before putting them into the air fryer.
- Buffalo Sauce: For classic wings, you can use your favorite buffalo sauce. If you don’t like spice, I recommend trying a honey BBQ sauce instead!
- For serving: Ranch or Blue Cheese Dressing if desired!
Here’s How You Make It
Step by Step Instructions
- Prep the Chicken: Pat the chicken wings all over with paper towels until all of the excess moisture has been removed. Season chicken wings generously with salt and pepper all over. (photo 1)
- Start the Air Fryer: Grease your air fryer basket and add in the seasoned chicken wings. Set temperature to 400 degrees and air fry for 10 minutes. (photo 2)
- Flip & Continue: Use tongs to rotate the chicken wings and air fry for another 5-6 minutes. (photo 3)
- Toss with Sauce & Enjoy: Immediately toss with your preferred sauce (we love buffalo or honey bbq sauce) and serve. (photo 4)
Expert Tips
- Make sure to pat the wings dry! Don’t skip this step, since getting rid of the excess moisture ensures that the wings can crisp up in the air fryer!
- For an healthier appetizer or meal, serve these chicken wings with Homemade Greek Yogurt Ranch alongside some carrots, celery and cherry tomatoes!
- For a full meal, serve your crispy chicken wings with some Sweet Potato Fries and a big green salad!
- Perfect sauces for air fryer chicken wings include buffalo sauce, bbq sauce, honey bbq sauce, or any of your favorite store bought sauces! Dip them in some ranch or blue cheese and you will be in wing heaven!
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely! You can follow by Crispy Baked Chicken Wings recipe instead, in order to get the perfect baked wings.
You can definitely cook frozen chicken wings in the air fryer! They will take longer to cook, so keep them in the air fryer at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, flipping halfway through. Keep in mind that cooking them from frozen means that more moisture will be cooking out of the chicken wings and might not end up as crispy.
It is best to eat air fryer chicken wings fresh on the day that you cook them, however, if you have leftovers you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. To reheat, pop them in the air fryer 375 degrees for about 2 minutes or until heated through. This method will ensure crispy leftovers!
More Easy Appetizers to Try
- Air Fryer Potatoes
- Buffalo Cauliflower Wings
- BBQ Chicken Bites
- Baked Lemon Pepper Wings
- Blue Cheese Stuffed Buffalo Meatballs
Best Air Fryer Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds chicken wings - or wings and drumsticks
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cracked black pepper - reduce to 1/4 teaspoon if using finely ground pepper
- buffalo sauce - or honey bbq sauce
- ranch or blue cheese dressing for serving - optional
Instructions
- Pat chicken wings all over with paper towels until all excess moisture has been removed. Season chicken wings generously with salt and pepper all over.
- Grease your air fryer basket and add in the seasoned chicken wings. Set temperature to 400 degrees and air fry for 10 minutes.
- Use tongs to rotate the chicken wings. Air fry for 5-6 minutes longer.
- Immediately toss with your preferred sauce (we love buffalo or honey bbq sauce) and serve.
What about using frozen wings? Or should they be fresh?
Frozen wings work!
These look so good. Does the chipotle adobo sauce come in a bottle or do you just use the sauce from the can of chipotle peppers? Thanks.
this looks really good! But I’m trying to make them now and these instructions are extremely confusing!!! Maybe try revising it to make it a little more clear…
I’m not sure how to make the instructions more clear. I’ve had other readers make these with great success. If you have a specific question about the directions I’d love to help you out!
I too have a question on the directions. Step 2 says to put half the sauce in, but I don’t see any direction as to what to do with the other half and when. Can you clarify? Thanks!
Hi! I’ve updated the recipe to be more clear! 🙂
Is a slow cooker the same as a crock pot?
Yep!