Third try is a charm for the PERFECT Crispy Baked Buffalo Wings recipe. I've found the secret ingredient for making buffalo wings ultra crispy in the oven. Hint: it is not baking powder. And it's exactly why I'm re-posting these with a new and much-improved recipe!
It's not that I mind eating the occasional deep fried food. Who doesn't love french fries? I just don't enjoy deep frying in my own kitchen; it's too messy, too smelly, and then there's disposing of the oil. Because of this aversion, I assumed that buffalo wings were only something to be ordered out.
But I've been enlightened; it's possible to make super crispy, utterly delicious buffalo chicken wings in your oven without baking powder! The secret ingredient? Plain cornstarch. Here me out.
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Ingredients You Need to Make Baked Buffalo Wings
For the Hot Wings:
- Cornstarch: not baking powder and certainly not baking soda - read why below
- Kosher Salt: or fine sea salt
- Chicken Wings: drumettes and flats separated (look for 'party wings' at the grocery store)
For the Buffalo Sauce:
- Butter: if using unsalted butter, add ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt or ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Garlic: fresh garlic cloves
- Hot Sauce: such as Cholula Original or Frank's Red Hot
For the Easy Blue Cheese Dip
- Blue Cheese: your favorite variety
- Garlic: fresh garlic clove
- Sour Cream: ideally full fat sour cream
- White Vinegar: or white wine vinegar
- Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper
How my first try went terribly wrong. (Don't make the same mistake!)
My first attempt at making these baked wings went wrong, but it was my own fault. My friend Nagi posted these Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Wings with Honey Garlic Sauce (I made that sauce btw, and you have to try it. It's awesome!). Then I came across Stephanie's Crispy Oven Sriracha Buffalo Wings. They were both using a technique from the America's Test Kitchen Meat Book; they coated the wings with baking powder before baking and, like magic, the wings came out crispy! I had to try it.
I tried it and they were HORRIBLE. It wasn't until the next morning when I awoke with an awful taste in my mouth that I took another look at the recipe and realized that I'd used baking soda not baking powder. Whoops! Do not make the same mistake. After the baking soda flavor left my mouth, which was no less than a week, I decided to give the recipe another try. And the wings were very good, crispy on the outside; tender and flavorful on the inside.
Why Cornstarch is Better than Baking Powder for Crispy Baked Wings
But I have to make a confession: there was still a hint of metallic flavor from the baking powder that I didn't care for, likely from the baking soda that is one of the ingredients. I learned that when I read the baking powder label, and the answer to the ultimate crispy chicken wings was right there. The first ingredient in baking powder is, drumroll please...
Cornstarch.
When you coat chicken wings in plain cornstarch mixed with a little kosher salt before baking, you are rewarded with ultra tasty, divinely crispy wings with zero metallic flavor. They're delicious on their own, but you can make them even better by bathing them in buttery homemade buffalo sauce and dipping them in my easy blue cheese dressing.
More Great Game Day Recipes
- Pulled Pork Nachos
- Pork Belly Sliders
- Bacon Wrapped Shrimp
- Baked Coconut Shrimp
- Baked Buffalo Chicken Tenders
- And here or a complete list of game day recipes
How to Make Crispy Buffalo Wings
Coat raw chicken wings in a mixture of cornstarch and kosher salt - 2 teaspoons of cornstarch and ½ teaspoon of kosher salt per pound.
Bake coated wings on an oven-safe rack in a rimmed baking sheet for 30 minutes at 250°F, then 40-50 minutes at 425°F, rotating the pan halfway through cooking time.
Coat in buffalo sauce and serve!
Crispy Baked Buffalo Wings
Ingredients
For the hot wings:
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt or ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3 pounds chicken wings drumettes and flats separated (look for 'party wings' at the grocery store)
For the buffalo sauce:
- ½ cup butter
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- ½ cup hot sauce such as Cholula Original or Frank's Red Hot
Easy Blue Cheese Dip
- ½ cup blue cheese crumbled
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
To make the wings:
- Adjust oven racks so that one rack is in the upper-middle and one is in the lower-middle.
- Preheat oven to 250°F.
- Set an oven-safe wire rack into a baking sheet lined with foil or parchment paper. Spray wire rack with non-stick spray or brush with oil.
- In a large bowl, whisk together cornstarch and kosher salt.
- Pat chicken drumettes and flats dry with paper towels. Add to bowl with cornstarch mixture and toss to coat evenly. Arrange in a single layer on rack in baking sheet. Bake on lower-middle rack for 30 minutes.
- Increase oven temperature to 425°F and move baking sheet to upper middle rack. Bake for 40-50 minutes more until golden brown, rotating the sheet half way through.
- Meanwhile prepare buffalo sauce. Heat butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When butter begins to melt, add minced garlic and stir. Cook and stir until butter is fully melted and garlic is fragrant; remove from heat. Whisk in hot sauce until smooth.
- When wings are golden brown and crispy, remove them from oven and allow to rest on rack for 5 minutes. Then place wings in a large bowl and pour warm buffalo sauce over; gently stir to coat evenly. Transfer coated wings to platter and serve with blue cheese dip (recipe below).
Easy Blue Cheese Dip
- Add blue cheese, garlic and sour cream to a medium bowl. Using the back of a fork, smash blue cheese crumbles into sour cream until flavors have melded. Stir in vinegar. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve.
Notes
- Keep an eye on the wings in the last 25 minutes at 425˚F to be sure that they don't get too brown for your taste. Some readers have preferred them baked for as little as 30 minutes at the higher temperature.
This recipe looks pretty awesome. I'm rolling through a pack or two of wings, and so nice to find someone else noticed the primary ingredient in the BP and had a Hmmmmmmmmmm moment! I've viewed quite a few comments, but didn't see anything like what I'm curious about - using either arrowroot starch or coconut flour (no corn or grain products here) as the drying agent. I'm going to give it a go in the next few days, but would like to hear your opinion. Thx!
Great question, Jude. My guess is that arrowroot starch would work just fine. I'm not sure about coconut flour as I haven't cooked with it much. Please let me know how it goes!
I've never cooked any kind of wings before; usually my husband smokes them on the Big Green Egg. But, he was sick, and I needed to use the wings we had in the fridge. Love how easy they were and really delicious. I'm going to try this recipe next time with chicken thighs because I prefer them to wings.
I'm so glad you and your husband enjoyed these, Bonnie! If you try this recipe with chicken thighs, I'd love to hear how it goes.
Is it okay to use cornstarch and fried the wings instead of baking ?
Hi there, Jeniffer. Yes, I think that should work just fine!
This is a great recipe. I do have a suggestion, though, for those that get a metallic taste from baking powder. I understand it’s about 30%. I taste it and it’s awful. Baking soda without aluminum sulfate is the answer. It’s readily available and cheap. I use Redford which I get at Target, There are others.
Hi there, Steve! Thank you for your thoughts, but why not just use cornstarch? It's simple and gives the wings that fantastic crispiness, no other ingredients needed.
Hi Marissa,
I made these yesterday, but I really had to watch them closely as they were done pretty quickly. In fact, at 425 degrees they were done in 30 minutes instead of 50 min.
My question to you is - should I have removed the tray while bringing the oven up to 425 degrees? I just left the tray in the entire time.
By the way, they were very good and my husband loved them so, thanks for the great recipe.
Thank you for your cooking notes and glad you and your husband enjoyed the recipe, Mari! I don't remove the tray while the oven is heating. But it's a good idea to keep an eye on the wings (as you did!) at the higher temperature. I've added a note to the recipe recommending that others do the same.
I was born and raised in Buffalo Wing country (Rochester, NY) now living in Maryland and finally, finally I've found a recipe as good as you can ever make at home. And even better, my family is mostly gluten-free so with the cornstarch not flour recommended by so many, you've made our football days better (Go Ravens!)
I love to hear this, Rachel!! Thank you!
Loved this recipe!!! I prepared the wings in the oven just like your recipe asks to and then divided up the wings into 4 bowls and instead of just using the buffalo sauce, I tried a few other sauces like store-bought Asian sweet and sour sauce, a homemade garlic parmesan sauce and a coconut red Thai curry sauce. Now I will never need to order in wings. Thank you so much for this simple recipe.
I love to hear that, Daniel!! Thank you so much for coming back to let me know.
Picked up some wings to make tomorrow night! I've tried the baking powder method but I'm super excited to check this out with straight up cornstarch. Buffalo wings are my weakness. 😂 Can't wait to taste these!
Awesome, Marissa! Let me know how it goes!! 🙂
They were great! Crispy and I loved every bite. 🙂 Thanks for the yummy recipe!
Made my day!! Thank you, Marissa! 🙂
OMG, I decided to try these for Super Bowl LIII, they were so easy, crispy and delicious and so much better than any frozen wing you can buy in the grocery store. This will be my go to wing recipe from now on. I am even going to try them as Teriyaki wings. They definitely scored a touchdown and the 2 point conversion..
I love this comment so much, Annette! You have my husband and I cracking up!! I'm so glad the wings were a hit!! 🙂
Made these yesterday for today's Super Bowl party. Excellent.
I'm so glad you enjoyed them!!
This recipe sounds amazing! I’ve been struggling to find a recipe that doesn’t use baking powder! Seems a really long time in the oven for such tiny pieces of meat, my oven is quite fierce, I’m worried an hour and a half is going to be too much!! Only one way to find out!!
Hi Jemma! I understand your concern. I'd do the full time at the lower temperature, but keep an eye on the wings during the last 20 minutes at the higher temperature to make sure they don't get too brown. Enjoy!
If I marinate the wings first, will the wings still get crispy if I pat them dry before dusting with cornstarch?
Can I just use cornstarch w/o salt as the marinate is salty already?
Hi Robie! Though I can't speak from experience, I do think that they'll still get crispy if you marinate them and then pat them dry before tossing with cornstarch. And yes, skip the salt if you've marinated them in a salty marinade. Enjoy!!
What a great idea, Marissa! I use cornstarch to get my oven-baked fries nice and crispy, but I've never tried baking buffalo wings. Like you, I assumed that was just something I needed to order out as we like our wings extra-crispy. I'll have to try this...perfect timing for the Super Bowl coming up soon! Happy New Year, my friend, and thanks for sharing this deliciousness!
Now you have me wanting to try cornstarch on oven fries!! Thanks, David! And Happy New Year!
These wings look so tasty and juicy
thank you for shariing
Thank you!
New and improved, how could I not give them a try. 🙂
I'd love to whip you up a batch myself, Karen!
I laughed out loud when you revealed that you'd used baking soda instead of powder. At least your mouth was probably really, really clean after! LOL - the revised version looks quite tasty!
It was so bad, Jessie. And, lol, way to look on the bright side - I bet my mouth was REALLY clean... Thanks, friend!
I can't wait to try these Marissa! I've never tried using cornstarch. Thanks so much for sharing the info!
Yay! I can't wait to hear what you think. Thanks, Mary Ann!
I've never used baking powder, but I regularly use cornstarch, like, all the time when I make wings. I made a big batch this weekend for a family get-together and they disappeared in a flash. Girl, I believe you 😉 !!! These look super duper good and that blue cheese sauce and buffalo dip are a MUST! P.S. what part of the wing do you like best? Hubby likes the drum part and me the wing part so it works out lovely for us, lol. Awesome recipe, my friend!
So you already knew the secret! Oh man, I like the drum and wing pretty equally - I love that you and your fella have it all worked out. 😉
OMG... you make me feel so much better... and Im laughing at the memories..... I did the same thing the first time I made the recipe with baking powder, and accidentally used baking soda. My husband deserves major kudos for eating all of them, while I was like this is terrible! Im going to give your cornstarch method a try Marissa!
Michele, I relate! My husband ate them too...that baking soda flavor was epic, lol! I can't wait to hear what you think of this method!!
Thank you for the great recipe, I adapted it a little by using drumsticks 1.5 lbs.
I used a clear glass spice jar with a holes in the top to shake on the baking powder.
I then added the bbq sauce, and followed the recipe. Mind turned out delicious
but less crispy as I used a deep baking dish. I have never tasted such tender chicken.
The benefit of course is the slow oven, it does take the oven to heat up to 425. So
allow sufficient time. It doesn't hurt in my opinion to add another 10 minutes.
I've never tried this with drumsticks - great idea! 🙂
I’m trying this recipe (with drumsticks) this very minute! Just popped them in the oven. My only alteration is adding a few spices (garlic & onion powders and cayenne) to the salt/cornstarch mixture. I typically roll my eyes when someone claims to have perfected baked chicken wings but I am excited to try these drumsticks!! (The didn’t have wings at my grocery today, weird but oh well!) Thanks for sharing!
That's great, Jennifer! I haven't tried it with drumsticks. I think they'll be delicious, but will need a longer cooking time.
Nope!! They were perfect using the same cook time as you posted for wings. I loved this recipe, thanks again!!
That is awesome, Jennifer! Really sweet of you to come back and let me know - now I've got to try it too!