Crispy Baked BBQ Chicken Wings

Lookin’ for the best BBQ wings? You’ve found ’em! They’re well-seasoned with crispy skin, juicy meat, and a finger lickin’ good sauce!

Video: Baking BBQ Chicken Wings

Ingredients For Crispy Baked BBQ Wings

One of the main factors for getting that delicious crispy chicken skin in the oven is using baking powder. We’re using our dry rub for wings that includes baking powder along with great seasonings like salt, chili powder, smoked paprika, and garlic powder. 

The baking powder (not baking soda) raises the pH of the chicken skin, allowing it to get more crispy and brown in the oven. It’s really a game changer if you’ve never tried this technique before. And I’m going to just say as an aside here that if you have tried it and love it, you have to try my newest extra crispy chicken wing method which involves brining the wings in a salt and baking powder mixture – they’re the best baked chicken wings ever!

Other than that, all we need are the chicken wings and some barbecue sauce. Use this sweet, spicy, smoky homemade BBQ sauce, or your favorite store-bought variety.

Lots of the time, wings in the store are whole chicken wings, not cut into the drumette and flat pieces you’re used to seeing in restaurants. So buy those wings and then you can leave them whole, if you’d like. But I think they’re easier to eat when you cut the chicken wings into the drums and flats sections. You can leave the wing tips on or discard them (or save them to use in soup).

How To Bake Crispy BBQ Chicken Wings

While the oven preheats, line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with an oven-safe wire rack. Spray the rack with cooking spray or lightly oil it. Oiling the rack helps the wings to not stick but sometimes they still do. So later once they’re cooked, it’s best to use metal tongs to slip under each one to dislodge it after baking without leaving the tasty skin behind on the rack.

You’ll toss the wings in a great dry rub, as mentioned, that contains salt, chili powder, smoked paprika, garlic powder, and that magical crisping agent, baking powder, and then and arrange them in a single layer on the rack.

They first bake in the oven at 250°F for 30 minutes. The initial low-temp cook dries the skin and helps the baking powder get started working its magic. Then you’ll raise the temperature to 425°F without removing the wings from the oven, and cook for another 40-50 minutes. The high temperature cooks the chicken through and crisps the skin.

Finally, you’ll toss the cooked chicken in BBQ sauce for the most amazing barbecue chicken wings ever. They still have the crisp skin, but the sauce softens it a bit into that wonderful Buffalo-style wing texture, you know?

How Much BBQ Sauce To Use

For a batch of 10 wings cut into 20 wing pieces, I use 1/2 cup of sauce. This is just enough to lightly coat the wings and is perfect for me. You see, I don’t like my wings to be dripping in sauce for three reasons. 1) Extra sauce is extra mess. I want the sauce clinging to the wings more than falling off of them. 2) All the moisture of excess sauce can really diminish our efforts at crisping the skin. 3) If using cold or room temperature sauce, it cools the wings down too much – I like them hot! If you’re someone who likes extra sauce, be sure to warm it up before adding the wings.