These crispy baked chicken wings come out of the oven juicy and tender with crisp, golden skin. Cleanup is easy, and they are game day perfect, but easy enough for a weeknight.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Holly’s Recipe Highlights
Chicken wings are the real MVP, no gathering is complete without them!
- Why Make It: It’s a big batch of crispy baked chicken wings with less mess than frying, and more room than an air fryer.
- Flavor: A savory, lightly seasoned base that pairs well with any wing sauce.
- Technique: Dry the wings well to cook with less moisture, coat, and chill uncovered in the fridge. Bake hot on a wire rack, with an optional broil for extra crispiness.
- Time-Saving Tip: Buy pre-split wings, line the pan with foil, and use a pre-made wing sauce to save time.
- Serving Suggestions: Serve dry with dips and dressings, or toss in your favorite sauce right before serving.
Ingredients for Crispy Wings
- Chicken Wings: Use evenly sized split wings that can be found in the meat section or at a butcher. Thaw fully and pat very dry for the best crisp!
- Coating: A simple crispy coating and some salt and pepper are all you need for the basic recipe, but feel free to mix in other seasonings to the flour coating. If using a salty seasoning blend, like powdered ranch dressing or taco seasoning, cut back on the seasoned salt so the wings don’t taste overly salty.
- Baking Powder: It’s the secret restaurant trick for crispy skin, but be sure to use baking powder, not baking soda, and distribute it evenly over the wings.
How to Bake Crispy Chicken Wings
- Pat wings dry.
- Whisk together the coating ingredients (full recipe below), and toss with wings.
- Place on a foil-lined pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes (or up to 4 hours).
- Once wings are chilled and fully coated, toss them in oil, then bake.
Once the wings are baked, serve them plain as salt and pepper wings, or toss with your favorite sauce. Add a dip like homemade ranch or blue cheese dressing for serving.
Storage, Freezing, Reheating
Let leftover chicken wings cool all the way, then store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days. For longer storage, freeze and use the baked wings within 4 months, so they keep their best quality.
To bring back that crisp bite, reheat them on a rack in the oven at 375°F to 400°F or air fry in a single layer until hot. For the best results, warm the wings first, then toss them with sauce right before serving.
Game Day Wing Spread
Did you make these crispy chicken wings? Leave a comment and rating below!
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds chicken wings split and tips removed, about 18 wings
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon seasoned salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Pat wings dry with a paper towel.
- Prepare a pan by lining with foil and placing a baking rack on it. Spray the rack with cooking spray.
- Combine flour, baking powder, salt and pepper. Toss with wings and place on prepared pan. Refrigerate 30 minutes (or up to 4 hours) uncovered.
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- Toss wings with olive oil in a bowl (ensuring there are no dry spots of flour) and return back to the prepared pan.
- Bake wings 20 minutes, flip and bake an additional 15 minutes. If your wings are smoking, remove the foil and add new foil. Cook until crisp and broil 1 minute each side if desired.
- Toss with sauce or serve with dips.
Notes
- Pat the wings dry, moisture makes them steam (not crisp).
- Don’t skip the resting period, this allows them to dry out and to draw moisture from the skin.
- Toss with olive oil for a little bit of crisp without the deep fry.
- Place on a rack on your baking pan, this allows air to circulate all around the wings.
- Line the pan with foil for easy clean up. If the pan begins to smoke from the drippings, add a new sheet of foil on top of the old foil.
- For an extra-crisp, put the baked wings under the broiler for about 2 minutes until the skins start to become golden brown.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Appetizer, Chicken, Party Food, Snack
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Not sure what I did wrong, but mine definitely did not come out crispy. I was so excited ro have the perfect oven baked crispy wing. hopefully my second attempt will fair better ! thanks for the recipe
So sorry to hear that, Char! I would love to hear how your second attempt turned out.
Excellent recipe. Husband and son both loved and we know wings living in Buffalo. Followed recipe exactly, we coated in Buffalo sauce (franks and butter), but next time I will season flour mixture with Tony’s Creole to make spicier. Larger wings baked for an hour, sprayed with vegetable oil 10-15 minutes before taking out of oven. Definitely will make these again.
Our wings turned out awesome! I also added garlic powder and onion powder. And I use Rumford aluminum free baking powder. I saw several people talking about baking soda not being good on wings, I agree, But, I looked on my Rumford aluminum free baking powder can, and the ingredients are sodium bicarbonate and cornstarch. So, that said, it still has baking soda.
Making these for the first time . I do not have a wire rack . Does anyone know if they will still be crispy ?
Thank you
Without the wire rack the bottoms (touching the pan) won’t be able to crisp up properly. I personally think they are still delicious, but just not as crispy as intended.
LOVE THESE! My new go-to for sure. Only sub I made was avocado oil instead of olive bc of the smoke point and I thought it was a little high to use olive at 425.thank you for posting
tried a lot of different recipes that never came out truly crispy. this one was awesome. this will be my go to from now on.
didn’t care for the texture from the baking powder and flour. Needed more flavor.
Recipe works as stated. Nice crispy skin wings from your oven, juicy inside.
No temperature or baking time included with recipe
To find the temperature and time you need to scroll down towards the bottom to see the recipe or hit “jump to recipe” in the top bar. I hope this helps Sharon!
I will never order out wings again! These are perfectly crispy and not greasy.
Taste was good crispy on the outside good but the chicken was very dry. Why?
If the chicken was dry it likely overcooked. It’s possible your wings were a little smaller or your oven runs higher than mine. You want to cook the wings until the thickest part of the wing is 165°F.
I’ve made these about five times since finding the recipe! these are legitimately the best oven baked chicken wings I’ve ever had. we don’t eat sodium so I omitted the salt and load up on extra spices, changing it up every time, and each time it’s absolutely delicious! the base recipe is incredible and you can work off of it using just about anything. thank you so much!
I make these wings all the time and they are the BEST CRISPY wings. My husband is a plain guy and loves the wings “as is” with just S&P. I love variety, and use all kinds of seasoning blends for my wings. Today I’m using Chinese Five Spice to pair with Jasmine rice and stir fried veggies. I find the longer you let the wings sit in the fridge (I’ve even done overnight) the crispier they become. You only need to use a small amount of oil when you toss the wings.
I hadn’t tried making fried chicken wings in a very long time….years. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve never attempted previously. I tried this recipe because I’d bought some chicken wings and I didn’t know how to make them so that the skin wasn’t rubbery. This recipe was easy, quick and DELICIOUS!!!! Loved that they weren’t dripping in oil. Will be making these again!
You have a lot of great recipes. Everyone in my house loves them.
Perfect first time since they were crispy and tender at the same time. Thank you very much for your assistence!
I put a tsp of garlic powder, tsp onion powder, tsp paprika in the flour mixture, turned out brilliantly .
Gotta tell you. I thought this would be awesome. I’ve seen similar recipes that stated how the baking powder would make the wings extra crispy. Even opened a fresh box of baking powder for this. Carefully followed directions. The wings looked great! Smelled wonderful….They were inedible. The baking powder made them extremely bitter!
Check your baking powder (BP). It probably contains sodium aluminum sulfate (or something like that). Some find the aluminum is some BP brands gives it a bitter, metallic taste. Try the recipe with BP that’s aluminum free. Also, it’s possible that you added too much.
is it possible you used baking soda? the bp I buy is usually in a can. I only ask because I almost did the same.
Probably used baking soda or too much baking powder. I use baking powder on every baked wing and they turn out great. I usually do one tsp per lb of wings.
Are you sure you used baking powder and not baking soda? There is a big difference. Baking SODA typically comes in a box as you described and baking powder usually comes in a round tin. Baking soda would have not been tasty on wings.
I am not a fan of the baking powder taste either. Disappointing, especially with the cost of food being so high. There is aluminum free baking powder; however, I found cornstarch works very well.
I personally have never seen baking POWDER come in a box but maybe it does. My baking soda comes in a box. Also as another said you need to use non aluminum baking powder.
Can you use cooking spray instead of olive oil?
That should work just fine.
We had tried other “crispy baked wings” recipes but this one did the trick–the wings were delicious. I only put them in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, so I look forward to trying a slightly longer resting time when we make them again. Seasoned salt is great, as well. Thank you!