Air-fried chicken wings are the juiciest chicken wings you can make. You don’t even need to thaw them! And they always come out perfect.
How long to air fry frozen chicken wings? It takes 30 to 35 minutes to cook frozen chicken wings in the air fryer. The time to cook will mostly depend on your air fryer and how many wings you want to cook at once.
The only difference to un-frozen chicken wings is that you have to add 5 more minutes to cooking, that’s it. They’ll be just as crispy and delicious.
So, the trick is to make sure that your starting temperature is lower than the final cooking temperature, from 380°F to 390-400°F. This way, your wings will get some time to unfreeze and start cooking properly, while at the end they come out nice and crispy.
Air frying your frozen chicken wings get you delicious and crisp wings on the outside and tender on the inside.
How Long to Cook Frozen Chicken Wings in Air Fryer?
For most air fryers, to get fully cooked frozen wings takes about 5 minutes longer than the regular wings, and that’s about 30 to 35 minutes total. Similar to boiling water – the warmer they are the faster they’ll get cooked.
The time it takes to cook them fully depends mostly on your air fryer.
If your air fryer can cook at 400°F, such as this Ninja air fryer, then you can probably cook your wings in 30 minutes or so, depending on how often you stop to shake the wings a bit, to make sure they are cooking evenly. If your air fryer can’t go up to 390 or 400°F then you may need to add a few more minutes longer, especially if you want that crispiness done on your wings.
There is no need for thawing, they will come out perfect at the end.
Why Would You Air Fry Frozen Chicken Wings?
Besides the fact that air-fried chicken wings are delicious, air frying is a great way of quickly cooking some healthy, low-calorie food when you’re in a rush.
It’s a great way of preparing food when you don’t have too much time on your hands, and you don’t want to deep fry them.
On top of that, they are considered a healthier cooking method.
Frozen chicken wings can take a bit longer to cook than unfrozen wings, but air fryers make it possible of cooking frozen meat much faster than you would normally do. And, without too many calories. That’s because you’re not adding too much oil to the equation.
Usually, when you deep fry, or do any kind of cooking, you may use too much oil on your chicken which means eating a lot of calories at the end. If you don’t want to eat too many calories, then air frying them is the way to go.
You can fry chicken in less than a tablespoon of oil and still get the same delicious, crispy results, but, even deep friying food is not as unhealthy if you adopt a healthy eating plan.
Check out my post on “How Long to Air Fry Frozen Chicken Nuggets?“
How to Make Frozen Wings in the Air Fryer?
Air frying frozen chicken wings are easy to make, the only trick is to give them 5 more minutes of cooking time, than for the unfrozen wings. Here is how to make frozen chicken wings in the air fryer, such as Tyson frozen chicken wings.
Time to cook: 30 to 35 minutes
- Spray the pan with non-stick vegetable oil (or spray your frozen wings instead)
2. Place the wings inside the air fryer, evenly spaced so they get nice air circulation to cook evenly.
3. Cook them for 15 minutes on 380°F or 190°C, then stop and turn them over in your pan. You can use tongs for easy handling.
4. Cook for another 10 minutes, then take them out, put them into a bowl. Add your sauce in the bowl and mix your wings in it. Then put them back in the pan.
5. Now, set the timer for 5 minutes and increase the temperature towards the end to 390°F or 400°F, to make them nice and crispy
6. After 5 more minutes (30 minutes total) the wings are ready, but, you can toss them into your favorite sauce again. Now they’re extra yummy!
How to Cook Frozen Chicken Wings in Air Fryer (tips)
Cooking frozen chicken wings is very easy, but there are a few simple tricks to make the wings crunchy, and to make sure to cook them evenly.
The thing about cooking frozen wings is that they can be full of excess water.
This causes a lot of steam in some air fryers, which isn’t a good environment for crispyness. For some air fryers, you need to drain this excess liquid, and for other you don’t.
Here are some good tips when making frozen wings in the air fryer:
- Cook at 375 to 400°F
- Turn your wings over every 5-15 minutes, to ensure even cooking
- If there is too much steam and excess liquid in the basket, drain the excess liquid halfway through the cooking
- Don’t jam-pack your basket. There needs to be some air circulation
- Coating in breading or baking powder to get them crunchy is optional
- Increase the temperature towards the end for 5 minutes
- Add seasoning and dry rub halfway or at the end
To get the dry rub on your wings, add your seasoning half way through the cooking process. When you turn over your wings for the first time, add the seasoning on both side before and after you turn them. Most readers say that this woks well.
To coat them in your Buffalo sauce toss them in the sauce after wings are completely cooked.
There are many more sauces and seasonings you could use:
- BBQ sauce
- Teriyaki Sauce
- Cajun seasoning
- Garlic Parmesan Wing Sauce
- Honey Garlic sauce
- Lemon pepper, and more
To reheat the wings, place them back inside the air fryer at 390°F for 5 minutes.
How Many Wings Can You Cook in an Air Fryer?
Most air fryers can cook 12 to 15 wings nicely.
It depends in the air fryer. Most air fryers, such as this one, can hold 2 to 3 pounds of chicken wings, that’s about 15 to 25 wings.
But, that doesn’t mean you should put as much as you can in there. They should be spaced with some air between them. It all depends on your air fryer and how high can you set the heat.
Some air fryers are better than others, and can cook more wings and faster. You can try 15 wings and see how that goes.
There really aren’t any drawbacks in cooking frozen chicken wings in air fryer. Well, there may be one small thing… if your chicken wings cook unevenly, make sure to shake them in the basket a couple of times while cooking. This solves that problem.
Other than that, it’s a great way to make some nice, healthier crispy chicken wings.
“I don’t mind hot and spicy. Actually find that appealing in a girl … And chicken wings.”
Rylann turned her head and stared at him. “Did you really just compare me to chicken wings?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Chicken wings are the bomb.”
— Julie James, “About That Night”
