Cranberry Chicken Wings Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret ingredient to crispy wings? ›

Make the crispiest chicken wings with this one secret ingredient: baking powder.

Baking at a higher temperature will result in crispy skin in a shorter amount of time—which is why 400 is a better option. However, 425F is the best option. A 350° F oven will still result in crispy skin, it will just take longer to crisp and cook all the way through.

Food stylist Richmond Flores' go-to method is marinating the wings and then steaming them before frying. This method, he says, imparts tremendous flavor and tenderizes the meat, but more importantly, the steaming helps render the fat from the skin which then allows the wings to crisp up perfectly.

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.

My not-so-secret tip to the best fried chicken is a combination of FLOUR, CORNSTARCH, and BAKING POWDER. When mixed with the flour, the cornstarch makes the flour coating crispier and gives it that golden brown color! (It has to do with prevention of gluten development.)

Air-drying the wings overnight helps them crisp up faster when you bake them, which corresponds to juicier meat in the end. Baking powder adds surface area to the chicken wings, intensifying their crunch.

Coating wings in cornstarch or baking powder before frying not only helps seals in the meat's juices, but also gives them a crispy, golden-brown exterior.

Coat them in salt or baking powder

Baking powder has no flavor but adds surface area to the wings, which can increase the crunch, and allows for more “sauceable” real estate later. Salt draws out moisture and also tenderizes the meat.

It really depends on the end result you want. I leave the skin on my chicken, and I like it crispy. Crispy skin is a result of dry cooking, like roasting/baking, grilling, or frying. Covering a chicken with foil will turn dry cooking into moist cooking - you're not really baking, anymore, you're braising.

bake on low then high – usually, the fat under the skin is part of the reason why baked wings don't get really crispy. In this recipe, we start at a low temp first which melts the fat under the skin, then we crank up the oven which makes the skin super crispy!

How to tell when chicken is done without a thermometer? ›

Poke the Meat

This method applies to chicken specifically. For properly cooked chicken, if you cut into it and the juices run clear, then the chicken is fully cooked. If the juices are red or have a pinkish color, your chicken may need to be cooked a bit longer.

If you want to add sauce, you will do so during the last 30 minutes of baking (and then again when they come out of the oven, if you want them extra-saucy).

Most oven-baked chicken wings are tossed in sauce after they have been cooked, which means that the skin needs to be perfectly crisp to soak up all the sauce. Thoroughly pat the wings dry with paper towels before seasoning them with salt and placing them on a baking sheet.

The best way to apply a rub to your chicken wings is the night before cooking. This allows much more time for the spices to blend into the chicken. We also recommend adding the spices by hand, rubbing the rub on all sides of the wings.

The baking powder raises the pH of the surface, allowing it to crisp better*), and tossing in plain cornstarch to absorb some surface moisture and create a rougher texture for the batter to adhere to. *See more on the science of baking powder and chicken wings in this article on oven-fried buffalo wings.

It may sounds unappealing, but coating chicken wings in seasoned baking powder is what makes the skin super crispy. You won't taste it in the end results, so long as you use aluminium-free. To be clear, make sure you use baking powder, NOT baking soda, because there is a big difference!