Air Fryer Hot Wings are even better than the buffalo hot wings from the Hot Wings Café on Melrose in Hollywood. Super easy to prepare and great on the wallet.
Air Fryer Hot Wings Better Than Hot Wings Café
There is a cute little café on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, called Hot Wings Café. My work colleagues and I often frequented the restaurant for lunch. They make the best Hot Wings!
They offer mild, medium and hot and they are served in little red baskets with French Fries, sticks of celery and Blue Cheese dressing. You can order six, 12, 18, etc. I think we used to get a dozen each. These Better Than Hot Wings Café Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings will make you feel like you are sitting in that restaurant, enjoying a meal.
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Cast of Ingredients for Air Fryer Hot Wings Better Than Hot Wings Café Buffalo Chicken Wings
Back in the 80’s things I was at the Hot Wings Café and was talking to the Chef about how much I loved the wings. He told me his recipe. It’s simple he said, just two ingredients. He also told me how to vary the heat with those two ingredients.
Years and years later, my husband and I wanted Hot Wings and I told him about the Hot Wings Café on Melrose. We made the wings in our tiny deep fryer as I remembered from the Chef and they were excellent. Friday’s became Wing Night and we needed a larger deep fryer, where we could drain and clean the oil, so we purchased a T-fal Oil Filtration Ultimate EZ Clean Up Deep Fryer and made the best wings. We did change the recipe slightly and guess what? The delicious wings were incredible, better than Hot Wings Café!
After a while, we started making the wings in our oven, but it just wasn’t the same. It did cut down on calories however, so we only fried once in a while. Then my wonderful, lovely, awesome air fryer arrived.
Pat the Wings Dry
We discovered that with our recipe and our fantastic Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer (? get this one) we were able to produce incredible chicken wings, even better than from Hot Wings Cafe.
I’ve also turned this recipe into a pressure cooker recipe, which you can find here Pressure Cooker Buffalo Hot Wings. They are super good, but we prefer this Air Fryer Hot Wings recipe better
Place the Wings in the Air Fryer
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Can Whole Wings Be Used for Air Fryer Hot Wings?
Sure they can. We like them whole too and kept them whole in my Air Fryer Hamburger Hamlet Fried Chicken Wings recipe. Oh yes, that secret apricot sauce is used in that recipe too!
By the way, if you do purchase your chicken wings whole and prefer them in pieces, I recommend the Kuhn Rikon Kitchen Shears. They self sharpen and cut through bone really well.
Do The Wings Need to Be Single Layer?
No, they don’t.
The air fryer I mentioned above is super terrific and the best I have tried. During cooking, you will shake the basket a few times and that is enough to cook and crisp the wings on all sides.
If you use an air fryer oven, the wings would need to be single layer and depending on brand of oven, may not need to be turned. Some air fryer ovens like this Instant Pot Brand Air Fryer Oven, has a rotisserie and many people like to put the wings in the basket.
Whisk together the Sauce ingredients
Personally, I prefer a medium hot wing sauce and Ed like a hotter hot wing sauce.
Can I Make Mild Buffalo Wing Hot Sauce?
- Good question and glad you asked.
- With my very super easy recipe you can prepare your sauce, mild, medium or hot….and somewhere in between.
- The recipe for all degrees of heat is the same with one minor adjustment. The hot sauce to butter ratio. The recipe card at the bottom will show you how to make varying degrees of hot sauce.
For me, making the sauce is very easy when I add all the ingredients to a Liquid Measuring Glass and using the microwave. Then I grab my trusty Rösle Stainless Steel Flat Whisk and I am good to go.
The beauty of my Hot Wing Sauce is that you can make it hotter or more mild after it is prepared! An important thing to remember and will make or break the sauce, is to use Frank’s RedHot® Cayenne Pepper Sauce. I know other brands are also terrific, but for this recipe, the Frank’s is my preference.
Combine the Hot Wing Sauce with Crispy Chicken Wings
The Hot Wings Cafe serves the wings with a side of blue cheese dressing and celery sticks. The wings are not dripping with sauce, which is a good thing. You don’t want them to get soggy, so make sure not to keep the wings in sauce while you are eating.
After saucing them up, get them on your plates and start to enjoy.
A wonderful side dish are my Air Fryer French Fries or my Air Fryer Yuca Fries with Creamy Curry Mustard Sauce.
Air Fryer Hot Wings Better Than Hot Wings Café
Just looking at the Air Fryer Hot Wings makes me drool.
For you chicken wing lovers, I bet you will like my Honey Bourbon Chicken Wings or my my Asian Sticky Chicken Wings. There are tons of chicken wing recipes on my website and I hope you try them all and then let me know what you love.
Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
My new favorite recipe for Wings is my Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings, which incorporates a different method of cooking the wings. Trust me, they are not your regular honey garlic wings. These are something to behold.
More Air Fryer Recipes to Make:
- Air Fryer Garlic Ranch Wings [Low Carb]
- Creamy & Crispy Air Fryer Avocado Fries
- Air Fryer Feta Psiti Greek Baked Feta Hors d’oeuvre
- Air Fryer Garlic Mushrooms Low Carb Keto + Video
Kitchen Equipment and Essentials
- Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer
- J.A. Henckels Classic 7-inch Hollow Edge Santoku Knife or Kuhn Rikon Kitchen Shears
- Anchor Hocking Glass (Liquid) Measuring Cups
- Rösle Stainless Steel Flat Whisk– a MUST have, probably my most used utensil
- Alton Brown Salt Box
- 3.5 Quart Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl
- Olive Oil Sprayer / Mister for Cooking
- My FANTASTIC Teak Cutting & Charcuterie Board & Compartments
- Silicone Coated Tongs
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Here is your handy printable recipe:
Better than Hot Wings Café, Buffalo Chicken Wings, cooked in an Air Fryer.
Print Pin Save RateIngredients
- 4 pounds Chicken Wing Sections
- 1/2 cup Frank's RedHot Cayenne Pepper Sauce
- 1/2 cup Butter
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 Tablespoons Light Brown Sugar (optional) for sticky wings, add more
- 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
Recommended Products
Instructions
- With a good knife or kitchen shears, separate chicken wings at joint.
- Pat chicken wings dry with a paper towel.
- Spray bottom of air fryer basket with oil.
- Place wings into air fryer basket and spread out. It is okay if wings overlap a bit.
- Cook at 380 degrees for 25 minutes, shaking the basket (or flipping over the wings) half way through.
- When 25 minutes is up, shake the wings and change temperature to 400 degrees.
- Continue to cook the wings for about 5 or 6 more minutes until the wings are very crispy.
- Remove wings from Air Fryer and dump into large mixing bowl. Add Hot Wing Sauce and toss to coat.
- Serve Hot Wings with Blue Cheese Dressing and celery sticks.
Hot Wing Sauce
- While wings are cooking, mix up the Hot Wing Sauce.
- In a mixing cup, add Frank's hot sauce, butter, Worcestershire Sauce, brown sugar and salt.
- Place in microwave and cook for about 35 seconds, or until butter has melted. If you do not have a microwave, use a saucepan on the stove and cook at low heat until hot.
- Remove from microwave and whisk together to combine.
Notes
For a milder sauce, use more butter.
Heat of sauce is determined by the Frank's RedHot® Cayenne Pepper Sauce. If you use less than 4 pounds, or more than 4 pounds of wings, the cook time is the same. If you use more than 4 pounds, you may need to make a larger batch of the sauce.
Nutrition
PIN this Better Than Hot Wings Café Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings!
Better Than Hot Wings Café Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings
Made recipe as directed. Came out perfect!!!
Can’t get enough of these!
Thank you, Joyce! Jill
Best hot wings.. only way to cook them in the air fryer
Thanks, Deanie. Enjoy. Jill
Best ever!
Thank you, Angela. Jill
Oh my gosh! These are fantastic!! You are so right when you say they taste like your favorite buffalo wing cafe’s wings. I will leave out the sugar next time,as I prefer a hotter wing. But the recipe is spot-on. Thank you so much!
I prefer it without the sugar too and when I make them, I leave it off. When my husband makes this recipe, well, he likes adding a bit. Jill
Great recipe. Thanks for sharing!
I just got a air fryer and this was the first recipe I tried. It was AMAZING!!!!! Thank you Jill
Thank you so much, Barbara, I am glad you enjoyed this recipe. Jill
This is the first time I have made wings in my airfryer. I put 12 wings in my 3.5 quart basket. Some of the wings were doubled up, but I shook the basket every seven minutes to turn them over. I followed your recipe exactly and, I have to say, they were the best wings I ever made. Nice and crispy, just how we like them. Thanks for a great recipe!
This wings were delicious. Crispy and not greasy at all. The sauce was the perfect balance of spice and sweet.
I add bbq sauce to your recipe to thicken it and they were GREAT! I’m cooking them for a 2nd time in 2 weeks by request.
This is based on the fact we eat wings every Wends out & my fiancé requested these again.
Temperature and time for air fryer?
I have made these wings twice. First time, as shown. Today I used half the hot sauce and 2 Tbl brown sugar. Both were awesome! Thank you!!
These wings and sauce are the best we’ve ever had
Thank you, Elaine. Jill
Best ever. My husband took one bite and said “Oh My God these are delicious.” Better than any restaurant we have been to. This will be a make again and again. I’d give these a ten if I could.
Hi my name is mary. I just purchased an air fryer would love any recipes that you have with kooking times included. was ready to give it away cause tried something in it and didn’t turn out thank you
How many wing would you recommend making at one time? First time attemoting wings.
I just got an AirFryer for Christmas.
Hi,
Got the GoWise 3.7 qt air fryer for Christmas. I found your site by searching for recipes for chicken wings. I agree with you that potato starch, or in my case corn starch, is better than flour for wings. Nobody in my town has ever heard of potato starch. I don’t think the folks in a couple of the stores knew what a potato is. I have ordered potato starch but it isn’t here yet.
I have always fried or grilled wings. I like grilled wings better but it takes so long to get crispy skin on 40-50 wings…and you need to constantly monitor them to keep them from burning. Anyway…
The first batch of 16 wings I cooked with nothing on them. Just dried them off and put them in the air fryer. Your recipe of 20 min. at 380, shaking every 5 min. or so, and then 5 minutes at 400 left the wings crispy. But the skin was rubbery and the meat was dried out. Tossed them in home made Teriyaki sauce and they were still good.
I dusted the second batch of 16 with corn starch and put them in the fryer. 15 min. at 380, shaking every 5 min, or so and 5 min. at 400 resulted in the coating being browned and crispy. But the skin on the wings was still kind of rubbery. Coated these in a sweet Asian chili sauce mixed with hot wing sauce and they were yummy too.
So I thought about it for a couple of days. I knew that soaking or brining the wings I grilled resulted in less shrinkage and juicer meat after grilling for 50-60 minutes.
So I soaked 16 wings in a Buttermilk/Lime juice mixture over night. The next day I drained the marinade and really dried the wings off.
I coated 8 of the wings in corn starch and left 8 of them plain. I put the wings with corn starch in the pot and gave them a shake. Set the fryer for 18 min. at 380 and shook them every 5 min. or so. The coating on the wings was nice and brown. The skin was dry and in the places where the coating had come off the skin was brown. After cooking, the wings were almost as big ad they were when I put them in the fryer. When I bit into one, it was crunchy and the skin wasn’t rubbery and I could see the juice in the wing. They were heavenly.
I put the wings without anything on them in the fryer. 18 min. at 380, shaking every 5 min. or so. What happened next amazed me. I don’t know if it was the buttermilk or what, but the skin was a deep mahogany brown and very crispy but not rubbery. And the wings were just as juicy as the previous batch.
So I would recommend that your readers marinate or brine the wings the night before frying them. And check the frying times of their machine using your recipes as a guide.
I have a Tequila – Lime marinade I’m gonna try and a few others. If nothing else, the old water and salt brine should work.
Thanks for letting me post without having to create an account and sign in first.
JC
JC, thanks for the tips and tricks in your trial runs. Would you mind posting your follow UPS? This Old Gal’s sauce is to die for but I can never seem to get the skin just right so I’m very curious. Also, since I’ve been using This Old Gal’ s yogurt recipe I ha e lots of whey hanging around. Think I could use that instead of the buttermilk?
Can you post your brine recipe?
I’m from LA and moved to NY so needless to say, I’m excited to try this recipe! I have a Cozyna 3.7qt Air Fryer. Should I cook all 4 lbs at once or separate them?
Hi Jessica. If they fit, no problem. Jill
Very VERY good! Really enjoyed them although I made them too hot! Lolololololol LMBO!
Wondering why your reported my very first newsletter as spam.
I made these wings this evening. One word – awesome!
Glad you enjoyed this recipe. Jill
I think I will try these wings 🙂
I made the recipe using my Avalon Air Fryer. Had 5 wings. Dried them. Put them in Air Fryer. Set time for 28 min(because Fryer was cold) and 380•. Shook at 13 minutes left. Continued to cook at 380• for 15 more minutes Buzzer went off and set for 10 minutes T 400•. Were not done. Fryer is 1400watt. What went wrong
Hi Sandra. Sounds like you just need to cook the wings longer. Jill
How many can you cook at once? Does it have to be asigle layer or can you put them on top of each other?
As a “denizen” of The Anchor Bar (Original home of Buffalo Style Chicken Wings -1047 Main St, Buffalo, NY 14209) I see one ingredient that most folks omit from their Buffalo Sauce-Celery Seed. Celery Seed is really a necessary ingredient (there is no sugar, BTW). I tend to “Lean on” the Celery Seed, don’t be afraid to use it-it’s a necessity.
Hi James~
That is interesting about the celery seed. This recipe is from the Hot Wings Café in Los Angeles. Jill
Jill, Why do you wash the chicken? I that step actually necessary?
Hi, I’ll be receiving my first Air Fryer in 2 days….
Will the wings be nice and crispy w/ out adding any oil or cornstarch/flour? will the sauce be great w/o worchershire sauce or is it necessary?
Wings will be super crispy. I don’t use starch in this recipe. You can leave out the WS if you like. Jill
I just read two of your chicken wing recipes, the honey garlic ones and the better than buffalo wings. Tomorrow I am making wings for a party and plan on using your buffalo wings. My question is can I do the potato starch coating for the buffalo wings? TIA
Hi Joann~
Not a problem to coat them as well.
Jill
I just got my Airfryer for Christmas and have been Stalking this receipt for weeks. I am ecstatic that this is my very first experience with my airfryer. Absolutely amazing receipe. I cannot wait to make this over and over again. My whole family thanks you. Thank you,
Thank you, thank you!!!
Thank you, Emilie. Jill
HOLY SMOKES!!! Just try and find “Potato Starch” in about 90% of grocery stores. Here in Richmond, Va I have yet to find it or even anyone who even knows what it is…Maybe try the much, much, much more available Cornstarch instead….Jus sayin…might want to inform your readers how difficult finding potato starch might be….P.S..You did a great job explaining everything else with this recipie..
Regards,
Ted
Hi Ted~
Thank you so much for your comment. There is no potato starch in this recipe.
Jill
I can find potato starch in all of our area grocery stores without issue.
Have you made these using a dusting of potato starch like you did with the honey garlic wings? I made them last night and they were delish
Hi Gerri. Yes, I have done that as well. 🙂
Jill
I made these wings today for the game and followed the recipe exactly. They were fantastic! I wish I would have made more. I didn’t expect my two year old to eat any, let alone the four wings she polished off like a champ! Thank you, will be making again!
Thank you, Amanda.
Jill
Just made these tonight and the were delicious! Do they reheat well in the air fryer? How would you suggest doing that?
Hi Mark~
Glad you liked the wings. They do reheat well. I would start with a lower temperature to get them warm and than just a minute or two with a higher temperature, to crisp.
Jill
Is the cooking time the same whether fresh or frozen wings?
Hi Mark~
Since you are using the air fryer, the cook time would be longer. I don’t suggest cooking them frozen. Alternatively, you can put your frozen wings in a bowl of warm water and let them defrost for a bit.
Jill
i WOULD USE COLD WATER TO DEFROST
Hi my name is mary. I just purchased an air fryer would love any recipes that you have with kooking times included. was ready to give it away cause tried something in it and didn’t turn out thank you