This recipe for crispy air fryer buffalo chicken wings packs the perfect amount of heat, flavor, and mess into a classic game day appetizer.
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Buffalo wings are a classic party appetizer – often one people can’t get enough of. And anyone looking to throw a good football party absolutely must know how to make a good batch of buffalo wings.
Lucky for you, we have a super easy recipe that meets the three major requirements of a good buffalo wing:
- Crispy skin on the outside, tender meat on the inside
- Just the right amount of heat – spicy, but not too spicy
- The messiest buffalo sauce ever
So how did we create the perfect buffalo wing recipe? In our handy-dandy air fryer.
We tested out a few methods when developing this recipe and learned that air frying produced the best results, versus baking or frying in oil. Here are a few key takeaways from our experiment:
- The air fryer creates a perfectly even crisp on the wings, but doesn’t dry out the meat
- The wings tasted less greasy than when we fried them (plus, they’re healthier without all the oil!)
- Baking wings just doesn’t give you that same fried-bar-food texture and flavor
- Air frying creates less mess than frying, which means less to clean up later
Once we perfected the wing itself, all we had to do was add the spice and sauce – which was the easy part! In case you haven’t noticed, we’re well versed in all things buffalo chicken.
Our homemade buffalo sauce relies on our old friend Frank’s Red Hot – we love it and we use it in everything. To make our buffalo sauce, we combine Frank’s with melted butter and a little bit of ranch dressing. It’s super simple, yet incredibly flavorful, and packs just the right amount of heat.
This recipe is really that easy, and comes together in just four steps:
- Toss the chicken wings in seasoned flour
- Cook the wings in the air fryer
- Make our simple 3-ingredient buffalo sauce
- Toss the wings in buffalo sauce and serve!
We hope to create even more delicious wing sauces in the future, including homemade BBQ, habanero, and Caribbean jerk (to name a few). But for now, we’re happy to have a classic buffalo wing recipe to share with you. It’s quickly become a game day staple for us – you’ll see why as soon as you try it!
Air Fryer Buffalo Wings
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 chicken wings raw
Seasoned Flour
- ¾ cup flour
- ¾ tbsp garlic powder
- ¾ tbsp onion powder
- 1½ tbsp ground red cayenne pepper
- ¾ tsp paprika
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Buffalo Sauce
- 4½ tbsp butter melted
- ¾ cup Frank's Red Hot
- 1½ tbsp ranch dressing
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, and pepper.
- Lightly grease air fryer basket with cooking spray and preheat to 400 degrees.
- Toss chicken wings in seasoned flour to fully coat. Gently shake off excess flour, then cook in a single layer in the air fryer (working in batches if needed) for 16 minutes, flipping halfway through.
- To make the buffalo sauce, combine melted butter, Frank's Red Hot, and ranch dressing in a medium bowl. Microwave for about 30 seconds, then whisk until fully combined.
- Toss cooked wings in buffalo sauce and serve immediately.
Nutrition
If you have any questions regarding the information presented in this post, please refer to our Nutrition Disclaimer here.
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