How To Grill Chicken Wings

Are you looking for grilled wings with crispy skin? Cook them over direct heat the whole time. Most recipes start over indirect heat then move to direct. I’ve tried it. The skin is always a bit limp, even if they say it’s not. Try the direct method instead. It’s a game-changer.

Don’t Marinate the Wings

A lot of grilling recipes have you marinate your wings first but I don’t find it necessary. Why not? Three reasons.

1. Wing meat is very tender and juicy as it is so you don’t need the marinade for extra moisture.
2. If you’re tossing the wings in a flavorful sauce at the end, it will overpower the marinade anyhow.
3. Our goal is crispy skin and adding moisture makes that harder to achieve.

I say, skip that extra time and effort of marinating and get the wings on the grill ASAP!

Having said that, if you really really really want to marinate your wings, I have done some testing and I have two great recipes for you to try. Just make sure you pat the wings dry with paper towel after taking them out of the liquid.

• This is my favorite chicken wing marinade. It’s simple but pairs perfectly with wings and with the usual sauces we put on them.
• For this brined chicken wings recipe, you soak wings in a mixture of water, baking powder and salt. It’s not really a marinade. It tenderizes the meat, adds juiciness, but actually acts to aid in the skin crisping instead of making it more difficult.

Steps To Perfectly Grilled Chicken Wings

Here’s how to grill chicken wings, step-by-step:

Step #1 Prepare the Grill and the Wings

Oil your grill racks and then prepare your grill for direct grilling over medium heat, about 350ºF as read on your grill’s thermometer. Keep one burner off or on low in case some of my wings are cooked before others.

If your grill doesn’t have a thermometer, use the Motorboat Test: With palms facing down centered over the heated burners, hold your hands 5 inches above the grill grates and count the number of seconds you can keep them there before pulling away (“one-motorboat, two-motorboat, three-motorboat”). If you can keep them there for about 6 seconds (5 to 7 seconds) the temperature is about right.

Season up your wings with whatever you’d like. You want about 1 tsp. salt for 20 wing pieces (that’s 10 wings cut into two pieces each, here’s how to cut them if you aren’t sure). I really this dry rub for chicken wings – it has baking powder in it to help crisp the wings, and the flavor is perfect with the juicy chicken and with the typical sauces used on wings too.

Step #2 Grill Wings

You’re going to cook the wings for about 18-25 minutes total. But, to develop some crispiness and color, you want to leave them alone for a bit. Start by leaving them on there, nicer side down so it gets the best grill marks, lid closed, for 5 minutes. Then use metal tongs to scrape under them to have a look underneath. Some tend to get darker faster due to hot spots on the grill. If some are starting to char too much, flip those over. Keep monitoring and flipping as they all darken and get flipped.

Once they’ve all been flipped, leave them for another couple of minutes with the lid closed. Then start looking underneath and flipping again.

At this point, you’re going to stay near the wings and cook and flip regularly. Leave them for a couple of minutes, and then look under and flip. Leave them for a minute or two and then look under and flip. If any of them are getting too dark on the outside, move them to that part of the grill with no heat underneath. They’ll continue to cook but won’t darken more.

After about 18 minutes of total cooking time, use an instant read thermometer in the center of a few wings to make sure that they’ve all reached 165ºF. If some aren’t quite there, give them another 3-5 minutes and check again. What you want are wings that are nicely charred on all sides and cooked through.

Note that the large range of times is because all grills are different in terms of heat, distance from grill to heat, etc., and also, chicken wings can vary in size.

Step #3 Transfer to Bowl, Add Sauce

Use tongs to transfer fully-cooked wings to a bowl.

Add sauce. You can go with a straight-up store-bought BBQ sauce or Buffalo wing sauce, or make something yourself. You’ll need 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup of sauce for 20 wing pieces, depending on how saucy you like them and on how powerfully flavored the sauce is.

Stir them up, adding more sauce if needed to coat them well.

This post was originally published in January 2016 and was revised and republished in May 2024.