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Learn how to make the most crispy, juicy, tender chicken wings with tons of flavor, these are going to be the best chicken wings you've ever made. Use a sous vide machine to get perfect results every time!
When my wife and I first moved to D.C. in 2012 (when I was still in the Navy), we roamed all over the city streets.
We went to museums, walked around the Lincoln Memorial and Tidal Basin way too many times, and found our favorite at-the-time-hole-in-the-wall wing place, Wingo's, in Georgetown.
It was a total accident of a find, but at 11 pm on a random weekday, those wings in big aluminum pans came in clutch for our midnight Avengers binge-watching.
But since we've moved back to D.C., it's been shut down for renovations. Which meant our wing cravings had to be settled at home.
Enter these sous vide wings. This blog is all about making food you just can't mess up and that means that yes, even you can make chicken wings sous vide style.
The seasoned wings are put into the hot water bath, cooked until they're juicy and tender, then put through a really quick fry in hot oil so the skin turns golden brown and crispy.
Make these small-batch wings for your next game day during football season, for movie or game night at home, or any time you're craving wings.
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Why Use the Sous Vide Process
This blog is all about making cooking simple and easy, and sous vide cooking is exactly that. It's 'vacuum seal and walk away'. When you return, you have perfectly cooked food that may only need a finishing method of cooking, like searing a chicken breast or steak for 30 seconds or quickly frying these wings for a couple of minutes.
No worries about if the chicken breast is dry, no wondering if the steak is at the perfect temperature, no thoughts about if the wings are undercooked. The sous vide did it all, you just put a little lipstick on it and made yourself a batch of amazing wings.
So why sous vide chicken wings?
- Better flavor. The chicken is poaching in an airtight bag for hours in a low heat water bath where the collagen breaks down and the wings stay juicy, the seasoning has a chance to mingle, and the proteins denature so the meat gets to be tender, even fall off the bone tender if you cook it for that long. But...
- It'll never overcook. Really. When cooking sous vide, your food will never go to a higher temperature than the one you set on the immersion circulator no matter how long you cook it. You will have perfectly cooked chicken wings the first time, second time, every time you make this recipe.
- It's easier to make ahead. The chicken can be seasoned and vacuumed sealed the night before and then cooked the next day. Or they can be cooked the day before, dried on a wire rack overnight, and fried the next day. It basically works on your schedule.
Equipment for Sous Vide Chicken Wings
You'll need sous vide bags and a vacuum sealer. I stand by my Foodsaver vacuum sealer and a trusty Anova sous vide bag for all of my sous vide recipes.
You'll also need an immersion circulator (aka the sous vide machine). I've used a few, but my favorite so far is the Anova Precision Sous Vide Cooker. You can also buy it with the water bath container, which is big enough to even sous vide brisket and whole racks of ribs. You don't need that container if you have a large stock pot, though.
Since we are deep frying, you'll need a Dutch oven to hold the oil. You'll also need a deep-fry/candy thermometer to keep track of the temperature, that's really important.
You need a wire rack for cooling the wings, and a sheet pan under it so the excess oil can drip away and leave you with seriously crispy skin.
How to Make Sous Vide Chicken Wings
The best chicken wings are flavorful, juicy, tender, and have the crispiest chicken skin. This is why I prefer the sous vide method, with no risk of dry, hard wings, even with a dip in the deep fryer.
First, preheat the immersion circulator in your sous vide water bath.
Then get your wings into a couple of sous-vide bags and season them with your 'dry rub'. It can be as simple as salt and pepper, or you can get creative with smoked paprika, cumin, chili powder, or your favorite spice mixes. We're keeping it pretty simple with salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powder.
Vacuum seal the bags, making sure to keep the wings in a single layer in the plastic bag. Don't have a vacuum sealer? Just use zip-top bags and the water displacement method to remove all the air.
Place the sealed bag into your sous vide bath then cook the wings for 1 to 2 hours. The longer they cook, the more tender and fall-off-the-bone they are because of the lower temperature, so if you like your wings to have more chew, keep it to just over an hour.
Once done, take the wings out of the bag and pat them dry.
With deep frying, you need to make sure the wings are really, really dry. Water + hot oil is a bad mix and can be dangerous. Because of this, you want those wings as dry as possible.
The 'make ahead' way is to dry the chicken wings out overnight on a wire rack in the fridge. But if you just can't wait, dry them out on paper towels while the oil heats up to temperature. Occasionally pat them with a dry paper towel as more moisture appears on the chicken skin.
Once the oil in your dutch oven is up to temperature, you'll need to gently place a few wings at a time in the oil. Frying small batches of wings helps keep the oil temperature from dropping like a rock. Small batch cooking, small batch eating.
Once your wings are beautiful and brown, pull them out of the oil with a spider strainer, lay them on a baking sheet lined with a wire cooling rack. The wire rack helps the hot wings cool down with 360-degree airflow around them, so you get better results and they won't steam and get soggy.
Now you have a pile of delicious wings! You can eat them by themselves or toss them in a tasty wing sauce. My personal favorite is garlic and parmesan but honey's favorite is lemon pepper.
Ingredients
Chicken Wing Segments. You'll find these oftentimes under the name 'party wings' at the grocery store and they're abundant around Big Game Sunday rolls around. If you can't find them already separated into drumettes and flats, you can do it yourself when you find whole wings. Save the wing tips for making stock.
Seasoning. You can keep it simple, you can go crazy, but you should always use salt. Salt your food.
Neutral, High-Temperature Oil. We'll go over the best oils to use for frying below. You want something that has a high smoke point, like vegetable oil.
Best Oil to Use to Fry Chicken Wings
The best oils to use for deep frying are ones that have a high smoke point and neutral flavor. This is not the time to bust out the expensive olive oil, its low smoke point will end up with bitter-tasting, burnt oil all over your wings.
The best picks in my opinion are peanut oil, canola oil, and vegetable oil. I have an infographic with more information below.
Best Sauces for Sous Vide Wings
We love sauces with big, bold flavor to toss our wings in. Here are a few of our favorites I know you'll enjoy.
- Chimichurri Sauce
- Lemon Pepper Butter Sauce
- Buffalo Sauce
- Homemade BBQ Sauce
FAQ's
There are approximately 10 to 12 sections (drumettes and flats) in a pound of chicken wings. This is why two pounds of chicken wings is great for this small batch recipe.
You can sous vide frozen chicken wings, just add another hour to your cook time
You can sous vide chicken wings for up to 4 hours for juicy, tender chicken. Any more than that could make the meat turn mushy.
Sous vide cooking the chicken wings at 160 degrees F (71 degrees C) gives you the best texture. Juicy and perfectly tender
Got leftovers? Keep them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Reheat them in a 325 degree F oven for ten minutes to warm them up. Do a quick broil for a minute to recrispify the skin.
More Great Sous Vide Dishes
- Summer Sous Vide Flank Steak Salad
- Crispy Sous Vide Pork Belly
- Sous Vide Steak Bites with Chimichurri Sauce
- Sous Vide Carnitas Street Tacos
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📖 Recipe
Crispy Sous Vide Chicken Wings
Learn how to make the most crispy, juicy, tender chicken wings you've ever eaten. Sous vide chicken wings get perfect results every time!
Ingredients
- 2 pounds chicken wing sections
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- Vegetable Oil or other high smoke point oil
- Wing sauce of choice, optional
Instructions
- Preheat sous vide immersion circulator to 160 degrees F (71 degrees C) in a large container with a water bath.
- Place 10 to 12 chicken wings into a sous-vide safe bag and add half the kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder to the bag as well. Massage the seasoning all over every piece of chicken in the bag with your hands. Repeat with the rest of the wings in a separate sous-vide safe bag.
- Vacuum seal the bags airtight and add them to the preheated sous vide water bath. Let cook for at least 2 hours, up to 4 hours.
- Once the chicken is finished cooking in the sous vide, pull the chicken wings from their bag and pat them dry with paper towels.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat until the temperature reaches 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
- Carefully place 5 or 6 dried chicken wings into the hot oil to fry for 3-5 minutes (depending on how hard you like your wings fried).
- Once they are golden brown and crispy, pull the wings from the oil and place them in a single layer on a wire rack laying on a baking sheet to catch excess oil. Let cool while you fry the rest of the chicken in batches.
- Toss the wings in your favorite wing sauce or eat as is.
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