Baked Chicken Wings

Name: Baked Chicken Wings
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: vegetable oil (as needed for oiling wire rack); 2 pounds chicken wings (wings and drummettes); 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon kosher salt; 1 teaspoon black pepper

Baked chicken wings are the perfect game day food. Drying the meat thoroughly and adding a light baking powder coating ensures crispy bites. Delicious straight from the pan or serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

crispy baked chicken wings on white platter with a bowl of buffalo sauce

Table of Contents

Chicken selection
Dry the meat thoroughly
Flavorful seasonings
Baking powder helps the crunch-factor
Set the oven at a high temperature
Baking time
Serve with a dipping sauce
FAQ
Baked Chicken Wings Recipe

Crispy oven-baked chicken wings are a tasty appetizer or meal to eat while watching the big game. For this recipe, we will bypass the deep fryer and use the oven instead. All you need is a little bit of oil to grease the rack to prevent sticking. That’s it!

Just because we’re not deep-frying doesn’t mean we can’t recreate a similar crispy texture. I use a simple drying method and just four ingredients that yield a culinary path to crunchiness. There’s also no flour which makes this meal gluten-free as well. So, turn up the dial on your oven, and let’s get cooking!

Chicken selection

When you purchase chicken wings, two parts are included in a package: the meaty drummette (a mini drumstick!) and a wingette or flat. The tips are usually trimmed off. I use two pounds of wings to make a big batch, about 20 pieces. It’s easy to reduce the recipe size or double it since the oven allows for more capacity.

Recipe Resources

Health Notes

White Meat vs. Dark Meat

Food Science

Maillard Reaction: The Key to Flavor Development

Food Science

Baking Soda vs Baking Powder: What’s the Difference?

Dry the meat thoroughly

Achieving a crispy texture starts even before cooking. Any moisture on the surface of the wings will create steam, which makes the skin soggy instead of crisp. Instead, dry the skin thoroughly with paper towels. This process eliminates the time required for the oven to drive off the moisture and brown the meat.

bowl of chicken wings covered in baking powder, salt, and pepper

Flavorful seasonings

I toss the chicken in a seasoning mixture of baking powder, kosher salt, and black pepper. If you’d like, you can add garlic powder or onion powder for a more robust allium flavor, about ¼ teaspoon of each.

The fine powders in the baking powder help to wick up even more moisture. To make them extra crispy, you can dry them on the wire wrack overnight in the refrigerator before baking the next day. I do this for my roast turkey. It’s delicious!

Baking powder helps the crunch-factor

Baking powder may be a surprise, as it’s typically used as a leavening agent in baked goods. For these wings, the baking soda in the powder helps to accelerate browning and forms bubbles as the juices are released from the meat during baking. The bubble mixture hardens on the skin to enhance the crispy sensation.

Set the oven at a high temperature

To kickstart the browning of the chicken skin, bake at 450°F (232°C). The goal is to create deep-fried results using a consistent high oven temperature. Baking above 400 degrees speeds up cooking.

Place the pieces in a single layer on a greased wire rack to ensure the heat freely circulates above and below the meat. The excess fat drips down to the pan and prevents greasiness. Flip the wings two times to ensure even cooking and heat exposure.

Baking time

It takes about 45 to 50 minutes of baking at 450°F (232°C). The wings and drumettes contain white meat covered by skin and fat so it can handle the hot oven temperature. The skin will be super crunchy in just under an hour, and the meat will be fully cooked.

baked chicken wings cooling on a wire rack

Serve with a dipping sauce

FAQ

How do you make chicken wings crispy in the oven?

The key to making baked chicken wings crispy is drying as much moisture as possible from the skin, coating it with baking powder, and cooking at a high heat of 450-degrees.

Do you need to flip chicken wings when baking?

Yes! Flip a few times to ensure even browning on both sides of the drumettes and wingettes. Baking on top of a greased wired rack helps circulate hot air beneath the pieces.

What temperature should chicken wings be cooked to?

Target 165ºF (74ºC) to thoroughly cook the poultry. Use an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the meat. Monitoring will prevent drying out in the oven

Is cornstarch or baking powder better for crispy chicken?

Baking powder contains alkaline sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and an acid-like cream of tartar or sodium acid pyrophosphate to create a bubbling reaction that hardens for crunch. Cornstarch is typically a drying ingredient in baking powder to prevent caking during storage, which also helps with crispiness. Cornstarch alone is not as effective for crunchy skin unless deep-fried.

chicken wings on a white plate served with buffalo dipping sauce

Why baking powder is the key to crispiness

Tossing the wings in a bit of baking powder does two things. First, the alkaline baking soda increases the pH level on the skin’s surface, which breaks down the proteins (peptide bonds) for quicker Maillard browning and flavor development. Second, the sodium bicarbonate reacts with moisture on the chicken—tiny carbon dioxide bubbles form, which dries and hardens. The result is crackly chicken skin.

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