How to cook chicken wings – 6 tips to make the best fast food snack

How to cook chicken wings like a pro isn’t easy.

Unfortunately, for all the promise of the humble chicken wing, cooking can all too easily end up producing a disappointingly greasy stick of gristle.

READ MORE: Chef Marcus Samuelsson talks Michelin stars and fried chicken

So we decided to find out the best tips on how to cook chicken wings.

Because, for all our arguments over the ultimate fast food, one thing is abundantly clear – the world loves a chicken wing. 

Cooking chicken wings isn’t straightforward (Credit: Pexels)

How to cook chicken wings

To help you avoid wing washout, we’ve gathered a few expert hints and tips together to produce the ultimate handy guide.

Ready the ranch and bring on the blue cheese.

It’s time to get winging. Here are six tips on how to make chicken wings like a pro.

1. Salt and Soda

While many traditional recipes call for little more than seasoning, oil and heat, the real challenge with wing cooking is in the skin.

To help you get the best possible crunch, a simple but surprising hack involves coating the wings with a mixture of salt, flour and baking soda before cooking. This will draw out some of the excess moisture and help the skin to blister, producing a wing with extra bite.

2. Brine and dine

Though the skin is obviously important, it’s only half the chicken wing story. There are infinite theories discussing how best to go about keeping the meat moist. But the most foolproof method is to use a brine.

By soaking your wings in a salty solution before seasoning and cooking, the chicken retains its naturally juicy texture.

Frying chicken wings makes them crispy (Credit: Pexels)

3. Fry will be done

You will find a wealth of perfectly tasty oven-baked wing recipes on the internet. But if you really want the definitive wing experience, the food must be deep fried.

Sure, frying may be the more unhealthy methods. But you can’t beat the perfectly crisp and deliciously tender results that deep frying delivers.

4. Soggy, not soggy

While deep frying is the only way to get the ultimate wing, it’s not free from risk. For instance, if your oil isn’t hot enough before you add the wing, the result will be a soggy pile of fat-soaked flesh.

It’s just as unpleasant to look at as it is to eat. To avoid such a disaster, ensure that your oil has been preheated to 375-400 degrees Fahrenheit prior to cooking.

Putting butter in hot sauce can make a huge difference (Credit: Pexels)

5. Fry me twice

The real crux of any well-cooked wing is the contrast between crunchy skin and juicy fleshy. Traditionally, people agree that frying is the ultimate way to achieve this sought after end result. But one restaurant has a radical suggestion for getting it right every time.

Chef Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese in San Francisco says that by flash-frying the wings once, removing from the oil, and refrying a second time when they’re needed for service you can guarantee crispy, perfectly cooked chicken every time.

Getting the temperature of the oil right is crucial (Credit: Pexels)

6. Butter in the sauce

It can be easy to take the lazy option and slather your carefully prepared wings in whatever comes straight out the bottle. However, if you really want to go the extra mile, you can’t beat adding a helping of melted butter to whatever you want to use.

This will give your sauce a velvety finish as well as a stunning sheen. It really is the only way to cap off the quintessential chicken wing.

READ MORE: What happened when we judged Europe’s biggest chicken wing festival

With people all over the world making unbelievable chicken every day in all sorts of different ways, it’s clear there’s no one formula for the perfect wing.

That being said, if you stick to one or all of the hints and tips, you’ll go a long way to guaranteeing a snack you won’t forget.