Fried chicken wings, beer, and football… What better way to have a great time? How about enjoying the wings without any of the guilt, enjoying perfectly crispy fried chicken wings without the fat and calories from deep-frying? Or, even better – discovering 2 techniques that are arguably superior to barbecuing chicken wings?
Air fryer chicken wings are a great lower-calorie alternative to deep-fried chicken wings. The wings are prepared in the same way but cooked in an air fryer with a fraction of the oil.
Can you deep fry in an air fryer? Can an air fryer really replace the deep fryer?
That is the question, isn’t it? It is all good and well to talk about a technique that is healthier, but we all know what deep-fried wings taste and feel like. Oven-baked wings are not the same. So, how about air-fried wings? How do they compare?
A deep fryer works by heating a large amount of oil in which a chicken wing is immersed. In reality, the wing only comes into contact with a tiny portion of the oil, while the rest acts as a heat source for the cooking process. Similarly, when air-frying a chicken wing to perfection, it is best to add a scant tablespoon of oil at the bottom of the air fryer, not on the wings themselves. The hot air of the air fryer heats up the oil and micro-droplets are vaporized and settle on the wing, which cooks it while the hot air acts as a heat source for the cooking process. The end result is that in both cases a thin layer of oil does the cooking while the heated medium around the oil acts as a heat source.
Unfortunately, an air fryer is not designed to handle a wet batter which will simply be blown off the wings long before it sets or they are cooked. At best, the batter drips off to the bottom of the air fryer, at worst, little blobs fly back into the heating-element zone creating a burnt smell as a result.
So, if you want wet-batter chicken wings, then an air fryer cannot replace a deep fryer. For everything else though, the air fryer is the way to go.
Is Air frying chicken wings faster than deep-frying them?
Air fryer chicken wings take 30 minutes to cook while deep frying chicken wings takes only 7 minutes. However, as heating up the oil for deep frying takes 15 to 20 minutes, the actual time difference for a single batch of chicken wings is minimal. For a large crowd where several batches of chicken wings are required, deep frying will be faster overall. We have a quick guide to serving chicken for larger crowds where this is illustrated.
There are advantages to air frying though. While the deep fryer can make far more chicken pieces in a shorter time for a large crowd, the oil needs time to drip off the chicken to make it healthier, which delays serving somewhat. In addition, as the air fryer takes longer but is less costly to operate, hosts can simply prepare the chicken as needed, allowing them to cook only as much as required and to serve the chicken hot, keeping a party going.
Are your air-fried chicken wings as good as deep-fried ones?
Put air-fried chicken wings next to deep-fried chicken wings and few people can tell the difference. Deep-fried wings may have a slightly crispier skin while air-fried wings have superior flesh, however, with a few simple steps, you can overcome this difference.
The primary complaint of air-fried wings is that the skin is not as crispy as with deep-fried wings. My top 3 tips for changing this are:
- Oil: – Spritz a little oil on the wings before putting them in the air fryer or put a little oil at the bottom of the air fryer. Oil helps to make things crispy. Without oil, the wings are basically baked until their inner fat starts to melt through. Just a light spritz as you do not want to add too much oil.
- Cornstarch: – Cornstarch is great at absorbing moisture and makes the wings much crispier. Slightly fried cornstarch is extra crispy and when used sparingly, it does not form great big blobs, leaving you with tiny salt-grain-sized bites of crispiness. It is perfectly fine to replace 1/4 or 1/3 of the flour in a dredge or batter with cornstarch.
- Baking powder: – Baking powder helps generate a little lift in the coating of the wings to make the batter lighter, which tricks the taste buds into assuming that the batter is crispy. Baking powder also often contains some cornstarch, which helps with the crispiness.
Are deep-fryer wings messier than air-fried ones?
Air frying is an extremely neat cooking method with most of the mess contained in the air-fryer basket and only a few vapors escaping the device. Deep-fryers in contrast are extremely messy affairs, generating a fine mist of oil that eventually settles on all the surfaces of the kitchen.
Diner chefs can easily be identified by the faint scent of oil permeating their clothes while a light patina of dry oil covers the surfaces of a diner kitchen. This leads people, where they can, to prefer to use a deep fryer out in the yard, where the mess is easier to handle. Air fryers enjoy a completely different reputation, being seen as easier and cleaner to operate and not making a mess of the kitchen.
Once cooked, deep-fried wings need to stand for a while to allow the hot oil to drip off. This makes more mess in the kitchen as more items need to be cleaned – I use a colander and a drip-tray underneath. Air-fried chicken can just be served instantly.
Are air-fried wings less oily than deep-fried wings?
The oiliness or greasiness of fried chicken wings does not generally come from the cooking process used as only a thin layer of oil actually touches the wings but rather, from the oils that surround the wings as they are removed from the cooking process. Most deep fryer recipes recommend letting the excess oil drain off the wings onto a kitchen paper roll. This oil takes a while to drain off the wings and during this time, it cools, becomes more viscous, and starts to cling to the wings. In contrast, an air
Read This Before Putting Chicken Wings In An Air Fryer or even buying an air fryer!
A major challenge with switching to an air fryer is that it is hard to visualize just how much food can easily fit inside the basket. Buying a unit that is too large or too small means that either you waste electricity or you get frustrated as the model purchased does not meet your daily needs.
It is also hard to imagine how switching from deep-frying wings or simply baking or grilling them in the oven would work. Would you be able to achieve the same crispiness, be healthier, or even get them done at the same time?
The great news is that air frying wings produces an end product closer to deep frying, without all of the extra fat or oil. In addition, the time required to prepare a batch of wings is not much more than for deep-frying if you take into account how long the deep fryer takes to heat up.
The even better news is that air-fried chicken is so much better than oven-cooked wings and much, much faster to achieve.
What is the best air fryer size for wings?
The most important factor for an air fryer is its size. Too small and there is no point in the air fryer. Too big and the cost-benefits fall away. A 6-quart / 5.5 Liters air-fryer seems to be the sweet spot for chicken wings. This allows for 20 wings to be cooked at the same time in a single layer, perfect to feed 4-5 people at once, or 8 people with a few other snacks while you wait for the next batch to be ready.
Larger air fryers will of course hold more wings, but this comes at a cost in terms of kitchen space and energy efficiency as a larger unit takes more energy to operate. Unless you use the air fryer at near-maximum capacity every time, the extra energy used to operate a larger model is wasted.
Tips on how to best make air fried chicken wings:
Air-fried chicken wings rely on a drier batter or even just a simple dusting of flour to create the crispy skin that is sought after. However, there are a few simple tips and tricks that can be used to elevate the wings.
- Flour: Use all-purpose or cake flour as a light dusting. This will draw out moisture and create tiny crispy grains to catch the sauce. As an added bonus, when the flour cooks, it browns nicely and gives off a slightly nutty taste.
- Consider using rice flour if you can as this has a much higher moisture absorption capacity and creates an even nuttier taste once crisped up.
- Salt: a little salt in the flour or just on the wings helps to draw out even more moisture and salt adds flavor.
- Spices: Mixing spices in the flour rather than adding them directly to the chicken wings helps to ensure an even distribution, spreading the flavor even further. As an added bonus, the spices will not get “gummed up” by the moisture in the skin of the wings.
- Adding spices to the flour also helps to build layers of taste as the spices create a base that will enhance the dip or sauce used on the wings.
- Cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder: These items, when used instead of the flour or mixed in with the flour, help the skin to get even crispier.
How does adding cornstarch produce perfect air fryer wings?
Cornstarch has an amazing ability to absorb moisture, more particularly, water. This is why it is traditionally used to thicken sauces or in Asian cooking as a first coating on protein. Put it in contact with the skin of a chicken and it will start to draw out and absorb the moisture in the skin. This moisture usually prevents the chicken skin from crisping up during cooking. The end result? A nice, crispy, crunchy crust…
Adding cornstarch to normal flour, around 1/3 to 1/2 cornstarch to flour ratio, seems to work best for me. The cornstarch will also prevent gluten from forming in the flour, which will make the flour coating crispier.
How does baking soda produce perfect air fryer wings?
Baking soda is an alkaline product that helps to break down the peptide bonds in the chicken skin. These bonds slow down the browning process during cooking, so removing them helps the wings brown faster, which in turn means that the wings will be crispier.
When used in a flour-based coating, the baking soda also reacts with the liquid in the recipe, generating tiny carbon-dioxide bubbles which are trapped in the coating, making it lighter and providing extra crunch.
All you need to do is add a pinch or two to your batter or flour dredge – enough to have an effect but not enough to ruin the wings.
However, too much baking soda can leave a soapy taste behind, which spoils the wings, which is where baking powder comes in…
How does baking powder produce perfect air fryer wings?
Baking powder is essentially baking soda with extra items mixed in – cream of tartar and cornstarch! Because the baking soda component is diluted, more baking powder can be used without altering the taste.
Combining what is essentially baking soda (which breaks down the peptide bonds) with cornstarch (which draws away moisture) is perfect as you get the best of both worlds. There is a slight chance that the acidity in the baking powder (from the cream of tartar) reduces the crispiness of the wings and can produce a slightly sour wing if used in excess.
Simply mix baking powder with a little salt and sprinkle very lightly on the wings, then mix the wings with your hands to ensure even distribution. Ideally, you want a very light dusting, almost imperceptible, and not a thick layer. If you want, why not dilute the baking powder in all-purpose flour or even some rice flour to create a slightly thicker dusting that will also catch the sauce when you finish your wings?
Do air fryers reduce calories?
Let’s face it… we do not eat fried wings because we want to be particularly healthy – after all, chicken wings are the 2nd fattiest parts of the chicken, right before the skin! Add to it the preferred way to prepare them – fried, not baked, and preferably crispy and battered, followed by a dunking in a hot sauce – and we have a perfect recipe to pile on the calories.
So, why not cut fat here and there, where it is barely noticeable but makes a huge difference to our daily fat and calorie intake? Used properly, an air-fryer will achieve just that – juicy, crispy, tasty chicken wings but without the added oil.
Don’t add oil to your air-fried chicken wings
Deep fryers take up a lot of oil and unless you use the device regularly, this oil ends up being single-use only, making the device incredibly expensive to operate. Even if you reuse the oil, how often do you reuse it? A 4-quart deep fryer will still need 3-4 quarts of oil to fill up. That is still 192 to 256 tablespoons of oil. Do you reuse the oil 192 times before you replace it? I bet that at most to reuse the oil 5-6 times before recycling it.
Contrast that to an air fryer, where at the most you add 1 tablespoon of oil to the bottom of the pan to help make foods extra crispy. That is a lot less oil, which is better for the environment and much better for your heart, not to mention your wallet.
Why not go the extra step and just use a light oil spray (1/2 teaspoon) on the wings to ensure extra crispiness and save even more money?
Air Fryer wings vs Deep Fryer wings Calorie Comparison Chart
| Item | Deep Fryer Calories | Air Fryer Calories |
| Chicken WIngs | 530 per serving | 270 per serving |
The results above are for wings that are air-fried with absolutely no extra oil, but coated in a cornstarch and baking powder mix and then dunked into some buffalo wing sauce. Adding a spritz or two of oil to an entire basket of wings will not greatly add to the calories count while improving the crispiness factor tremendously – and that is what we want in wings, right?
Conclusions:
Pros of air frying:
- Wings are super crispy, virtually indistinguishable from deep-fried wings.
- Much faster than baking – 30 minutes vs 60 minutes (100 if pre-heating is required)
- Much easier to clean up compared to baking or deep-frying
- Cheap, highly versatile kitchen accessory that can do so much more than wings.
- Healthier wings – fewer calories and trans-fats compared to deep-frying.
Cons of air-frying:
- The basket size limits how many wings can be cooked at the same time – 15 -20 wings or less than in an oven!
- The basket needs shaking every 5 -10 minutes to create an even cook on the wings.
- Yet another gadget in a kitchen – just have this and the microwave if single and in a limited space.