Learn how to cook frozen chicken wings; it’s fast, easy, and convenient! You can bake, boil, or air fry chicken wings from frozen.
Did you forget to take the wings out of the freezer? No problem! Cooking chicken wings from frozen is easy, and the results are all that you could wish for! Season them with your favorite spices or toss them in a sauce for a quick and delicious dinner or appetizer.
Can You Cook Chicken Wings From Frozen? Whether you buy wings frozen and already cut from the freezer section of your grocery store or buy them fresh then cut and freeze them yourself, you can cook them from frozen.
How to bake frozen chicken wings?
Step-by-step instructions
- Set the oven to 430 degrees Fahrenheit/ 220 degrees Celsius, but you don’t have to preheat it. Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil and place a wire rack on top. Lightly brush the rack with oil or spray it with nonstick spray.
- Cook: Arrange the frozen pieces on top. Bake for 25 minutes.
- Season and flip: Remove the tray from the oven and sprinkle them generously with seasoning. Flip using tongs and season the other side as well (3).
- Return to the oven and bake for another 25 minutes or until cooked through. You can brush them with sauce about 5 minutes before you finish cooking them (4). Or toss them with sauce once you take them out of the oven.
- For extra crispiness, turn on the broil and broil them for 5 to 10 minutes or until crispy. Keep an eye on them so that they don’t burn.
So, let’s get to the testing. I only almost burned down the kitchen using one method.
If you’re looking for crispy skin and evenly cooked meat, then the oven is the best bet by far. If you really want juicy wings and don’t care about crispy skin, go ahead and use the toaster oven. But I will be using the oven and only the oven to cook my frozen wings from here on out. And I will never, ever, ever try to cook frozen chicken wings in a microwave ever again.
The wings came out of the oven with very crispy skin—something I look for in a good chicken wing. I really don’t like soggy skin. The oven also imparted a nice charred flavor. The meat itself was a little dry, but it was flavorful and juicy enough—nothing a little dip into some blue cheese dressing or more Buffalo sauce couldn’t solve. If someone served me a platter of these oven-cooked wings, I’d be very pleased and have no problem polishing them off. In the future, I might take a couple of minutes off the cook time to ensure a slightly juicier wing, though.
I definitely thought air frying would be the best way to cook frozen chicken wings. I thought the skin would be extra crispy. But the whole thing wound up being chewy—both the skin and the meat. I even tried leaving the wings in the air fryer setting for extra time (more than the wings packaging recommended), but it didn’t help. The wings turned spongy. This is definitely not the best way to cook frozen wings.
What’s the best way to cook frozen chicken wings? We were wondering the same thing. So I picked up a bag of Foster Farms Hot & Spicy Wings (the best frozen chicken wings, as decided by us in our most recent taste test) and cooked them four different ways in order to find the optimal cooking method. I cooked them in the oven, in our Black + Decker toaster oven using the toaster oven setting, in our toaster oven using the air fryer setting, and in the microwave.
BEST OVEN COOKED FROZEN CHICKEN WINGS RECIPE FOR DINNER. NO AIR FRYER NEEDED BANG BANG
FAQ
Should frozen chicken wings be thawed before cooking?
Can you cook chicken wings without defrosting?
Do chicken wings need to be thawed before air frying?
How do you defrost chicken wings quickly?