Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings are great as an appetizer or a main course. Healthier then deep frying, these wings are so crispy and delicious.
Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
These Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings have just become my favorite chicken wings of all time. They look deep fried, but they are not.
I know I told you that my favorite wings are my Better Than Hot Wings Cafe, Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings. They have been my favorite for years. This recipe is the combined effort of my husband and me.
Potato Starch is Key!
He created and made the sauce. I had the idea for the wings, with the timing and he executed this whole recipe.
Potato Starch is the secret ingredient.
Don’t be tempted to use flour instead of Potato Starch. You won’t get the same effect or taste. Do you remember years ago, sitting down at a Chinese restaurant and perusing the menu?
The waitress or waiter would bring each guest an eggroll, a fried shrimp and a cup of soup. Remember the crunch of that shrimp? It was light, but crackly and crunchy and delicious?
That is the texture and feeling you will get with these Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings.
Oh, and if you love that shrimp, you must try my Bang Bang Shrimp (Bonefish Grill) recipe. It is heaven in your mouth.
Lots and lots of garlic infused in butter with sweet honey, make these wings so delicious. There are only a few ingredients and you may be thinking, yeah right, how can this be as good as This Old Gal says.
Keep reading and watching. They are not your everyday Honey Garlic Chicken Wings….they are not!
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Coat the Wings with Potato Starch
Make sure your wings have been patted dry. Set them aside for now. For timing purposes, start making the sauce first. While the sauce is cooking, place dried Chicken Wings into a large mixing bowl. Dump the Potato Starch on top of the raw Chicken Wings.
Completely Coat the Wings with Potato Starch
Use tongs so that the Potato Starch does not stick to your fingers. Completely coat the wings with the Potato Starch. No, you may not use flour! 🙂 No, No, No!!!!!
Trust me, you’re going to thank me if you use Potato Starch.
Use Silicone Tongs, not your fingers to handle the wings. You want to make sure that the Potato Starch does not gunk up and get sticky. You also don’t want to scratch your Air Fryer.
Properly Seasoned Air Fryer Basket
Shake Off Any Extra Potato Starch
Using Silicone Coated Tongs, shake off any excess Potato Starch and place the Wings into the Air Fryer.
Gently Place them in the Air Fryer
This recipe is for 16 chicken wing parts, so I used my smaller Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer.
Generally we use our Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer, but I wanted to show you that this Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer works wonders!
Allow the Chicken Wings to cook for 25 minutes, shaking them every five minutes or so.
Melt the Butter
Using a small saucepan, heat it on low heat. Add the butter after the pan is hot. Adding a fat to a hot pan, makes the pan non stick!
Add Minced Garlic
Add the minced garlic to the saucepan. Allow the garlic to infuse into the butter on low heat for 5 minutes.
You don’t want to sauté or burn the garlic, so be careful to watch the heat. Whisk the butter mixture about every couple of minutes.
Pour in Honey
At this point, the butter will be nicely infused with garlic and the aroma will be delightful.
Add the honey to the Saucepan and Whisk to incorporate into the butter. Continue Whisking every so often for about 20 minutes. You don’t need to stir constantly, just make sure nothing burns.
The mixture should be at a very, very low simmer.
Shake the Wings at the Half Way Point
Shake the wings at the half way point. When the Buzzer sounds, give the wings another shake. Raise the temperature and put them back into the Air Fryer. You can see how nice and puffy and delicious the Wings look, even before the Sauce is added.
Gorgeous Caramel Color
The sauce will turn a gorgeous caramel color. That is how you know it is just about ready. It will become syrupy.
Thickened Sauce
It now looks like a caramel sauce. Turn off the heat on the stove. The wings are almost ready.
They are ready after just 8 more minutes
Look how crispy they look. They are so crunchy and crispy and not oily at all. Don’t they look wonderful? The Potato Starch really allows the wings to crisp up beautifully.
Make sure each wing is dry and crisp. If there are any soft parts, let them cook a bit longer. If you need to shake more for your particular brand of air fryer, do. There is nothing worse than soggy wing skin!
Place the Chicken Wings into a Large Bowl
Place the Air Fryer Chicken Wings into a Large Serving/Mixing Bowl and pour on the hot Honey Garlic Sauce. There will just be enough syrup (sauce) to coat the wings.
Toss the wings to coat completely. There won’t be any sauce left over for dipping as all the sauce should stick to the wings.
These Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings are not a saucy type of wing. They will be a syrupy, sticky nature.
Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
Enjoy the Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings with Air Fryer Seasoned French Fries or Thai Triple Coconut Rice and a green vegetable. For another delicious flavor, try my Air Fryer Crispy Old Bay Chicken Wings with Warm Lemon Butter or my Air Fryer Chinese Salt & Pepper Chicken Wings, which are amazing!
Kitchen Equipment and Essentials
- Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer
- J.A. Henckels Classic 7-inch Hollow Edge Santoku Knife
- Amco Advanced Performance 18/10 Stainless Steel Measuring Spoons
- Simply Gourmet (Dry) Stainless Steel Measuring Cups
- Rösle Stainless Steel Flat Whisk– a MUST have, probably my most used utensil
- Rösle Silicone Flat Whisk
- Cilio Olivewood Spatula
- Porcelain & Bamboo Salt Box with Spoon
- Bellemain Porcelain Ramekins
- My FANTASTIC Teak Cutting & Charcuterie Board & Compartments
- Kuhn Rikon Kitchen Shears
- Corelle Large Serving Bowl
- Silicone Coated Tongs
- Potato Starch
- Stainless Steel Saucepan
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Here is the handy printable recipe:
Ingredients
- 16 Pieces Chicken Wings
- 3/4 cup Potato Starch
- 1/4 cup Clover Honey
- 1/4 cup Butter
- 4 Tablespoons Fresh Garlic minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1/8 cup Fresh Water (or more as needed)
Instructions
- See my article on How to Prepare and Properly Season Your Air Fryer Basket.
- Rinse and dry chicken wings. Add Potato Starch to bowl and coat chicken wings. Add coated chicken wings to Air Fryer.
- Cook at 380 degrees for 25 minutes, shaking the basket every five minutes.
- When Timer sounds, cook at 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes. All skin on all wings should be very dry and crisp.
- Heat a small stainless steel saucepan on low heat. Melt butter and then add garlic. Sauté the garlic for 5 minutes.
- Add honey and salt and simmer on low for about 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes, just so the sauce does not burn. Add a few drops of water after 15 minutes to keep Sauce from hardening.
- Remove chicken wings from Air Fryer and pour over the sauce.
Notes
PIN this Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings!
Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
Can I use corn starch instead of potato starch to coat?
Will these turn out crispy if you remove the skin?
Absolutely delicious, both the wings and the sauce. I’m a big fan of potato starch. How do you think these would heat up, for a party, if I store the cooked wings a couple of days? I’d like to get all the messy stuff done ahead of time.
You would want to crisp up the wings first. Jill
Omigod these are the best ever! Absolutely loved these and will be using potato starch more for air frying. Could sweat they were deep fried. Loved the way the garlic cartelized in the sauce! Thank you for such a fantastic recipe!
Thank you, Jan. I am thrilled you enjoyed this recipe. It is one of our favorites. Jill
Jill, these look amazing
Would there be a time and temp difference using the Mealthy CrispLid?
Hi Anne. Everything should be the same. Crisp to your desired texture. Jill
Will try for sure,thanks Jill
Thanks, Stella. Jill
Crispy, golden brown and the sauce is spectacular. We make these about once a month! Yum!
Thank you so much, Marg. I am glad you enjoy my recipe. Jill
Great recipe.potatoe starch great have a family member with gluten issues these were great!!!? Looking forward to more air fryer recipes.thank you!
Love this recipe! So darn good – definitely a favorite with my family. Thank you for sharing Jill!
Thank you so much, Eileen. I am glad you enjoyed the wings. Jill
How would you adjust the cooking time to make this recipe with chicken legs? Thanks for this great recipe!
I would just watch the chicken and cook until there is no pink running out of the legs. Then up the temp for a couple of minutes.
These were nice. Couldn’t decide between this one and the bang bang chicken wings so made both and wasnt disappointed.
I followed the recipe exactly using my air fryer for the first time. The wings turned out great and the honey garlic sauce was very tasty. We used the sauce as a dip instead of all over the chicken. I think the potato starch made for a very nice crunchy coating. Will definitely make this again.
These were my first attempt to cook in my air fryer and they turned out perfectly! Everyone loved them. I cooked them longer because they were partially frozen, but they were awesome! Love the potato starch. So crispy!
Thank you for suggesting the potato starch. We had tried flour and it was a FLOP! The potato starch made a huge difference and was delicious! I couldn’t find any around here but ordered it from Amazon! Deelish!
Hi Kami. I am glad you enjoyed the wings. The starch is the key for air fryer recipes. Jill
Great Wings!!! Love this recipe added a touch of HOT SAUCE! Yummy
Would rice flour work? Also, I have the air fryer oven, the one with the shelves. Have you ever tried it?
Thank you, Jill! Terrific results – we used our brand-new GoWISE USA 5.8 qt. air fryer and the wings were deliciously crispy using potato starch. The sauce took a bit longer than 20 minutes (perhaps we had the heat too low) – at 20 minutes, the butter was still separate from the honey, but after about 40 minutes, it was well-integrated and syrupy.
I was a bit nervous to do more than 10 pieces at a time (which fit in an even layer on the bottom of the basket). But you said that you’ve done 16 pieces in your 3.7 qt. air fryer, so maybe I’ll take the risk and do more in one batch next time. Do you ever use perforated parchment paper on the bottom of the basket?
I have an observation/question for you: the 50-recipe cookbook that came with the air fryer has recipes for Honey Lime Chicken Wings and Spicy Fried Chicken that only take 9 minutes total for the wings (at 350 degrees) and 18 minutes for the drumsticks (at 390 degrees for 10 minutes and 300 degrees for 8 minutes). Your recipe for wings was 25 minutes at 380 degrees plus 5-10 minutes at 400 degrees. Do you really find that it’s necessary to cook your wings for that long?
I like very crispy wings. Re parchment paper, it depends on what you are cooking. For instance, I would not do the fries on parchment. Jill
What do you have against using flour????
Please give my 20 really very good reasons
why your are so adamantly against the use of it
to fry chicken.
You are welcome to do you own testing. Jill
Does this work with chicken breast?
Would this recipe work with chicken breast? I’m wondering if the potato starch would stick to the breast like it does the wing since there’s no skin on it.
Thanks! By the way I tried out this recipe with the wings and it’s the best with potato starch, you are right!!