Air Fryer Hot Wings are even better than the buffalo hot wings from the Hot Wings Café on Melrose in Hollywood. Super easy to prepare and great on the wallet.
Air Fryer Hot Wings Better Than Hot Wings Café
There is a cute little café on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, called Hot Wings Café. My work colleagues and I often frequented the restaurant for lunch. They make the best Hot Wings!
They offer mild, medium and hot and they are served in little red baskets with French Fries, sticks of celery and Blue Cheese dressing. You can order six, 12, 18, etc. I think we used to get a dozen each. These Better Than Hot Wings Café Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings will make you feel like you are sitting in that restaurant, enjoying a meal.
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Cast of Ingredients for Air Fryer Hot Wings Better Than Hot Wings Café Buffalo Chicken Wings
Back in the 80’s things I was at the Hot Wings Café and was talking to the Chef about how much I loved the wings. He told me his recipe. It’s simple he said, just two ingredients. He also told me how to vary the heat with those two ingredients.
Years and years later, my husband and I wanted Hot Wings and I told him about the Hot Wings Café on Melrose. We made the wings in our tiny deep fryer as I remembered from the Chef and they were excellent. Friday’s became Wing Night and we needed a larger deep fryer, where we could drain and clean the oil, so we purchased a T-fal Oil Filtration Ultimate EZ Clean Up Deep Fryer and made the best wings. We did change the recipe slightly and guess what? The delicious wings were incredible, better than Hot Wings Café!
After a while, we started making the wings in our oven, but it just wasn’t the same. It did cut down on calories however, so we only fried once in a while. Then my wonderful, lovely, awesome air fryer arrived.
Pat the Wings Dry
We discovered that with our recipe and our fantastic Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer (? get this one) we were able to produce incredible chicken wings, even better than from Hot Wings Cafe.
I’ve also turned this recipe into a pressure cooker recipe, which you can find here Pressure Cooker Buffalo Hot Wings. They are super good, but we prefer this Air Fryer Hot Wings recipe better
Place the Wings in the Air Fryer
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Can Whole Wings Be Used for Air Fryer Hot Wings?
Sure they can. We like them whole too and kept them whole in my Air Fryer Hamburger Hamlet Fried Chicken Wings recipe. Oh yes, that secret apricot sauce is used in that recipe too!
By the way, if you do purchase your chicken wings whole and prefer them in pieces, I recommend the Kuhn Rikon Kitchen Shears. They self sharpen and cut through bone really well.
Do The Wings Need to Be Single Layer?
No, they don’t.
The air fryer I mentioned above is super terrific and the best I have tried. During cooking, you will shake the basket a few times and that is enough to cook and crisp the wings on all sides.
If you use an air fryer oven, the wings would need to be single layer and depending on brand of oven, may not need to be turned. Some air fryer ovens like this Instant Pot Brand Air Fryer Oven, has a rotisserie and many people like to put the wings in the basket.
Whisk together the Sauce ingredients
Personally, I prefer a medium hot wing sauce and Ed like a hotter hot wing sauce.
Can I Make Mild Buffalo Wing Hot Sauce?
- Good question and glad you asked.
- With my very super easy recipe you can prepare your sauce, mild, medium or hot….and somewhere in between.
- The recipe for all degrees of heat is the same with one minor adjustment. The hot sauce to butter ratio. The recipe card at the bottom will show you how to make varying degrees of hot sauce.
For me, making the sauce is very easy when I add all the ingredients to a Liquid Measuring Glass and using the microwave. Then I grab my trusty Rösle Stainless Steel Flat Whisk and I am good to go.
The beauty of my Hot Wing Sauce is that you can make it hotter or more mild after it is prepared! An important thing to remember and will make or break the sauce, is to use Frank’s RedHot® Cayenne Pepper Sauce. I know other brands are also terrific, but for this recipe, the Frank’s is my preference.
Combine the Hot Wing Sauce with Crispy Chicken Wings
The Hot Wings Cafe serves the wings with a side of blue cheese dressing and celery sticks. The wings are not dripping with sauce, which is a good thing. You don’t want them to get soggy, so make sure not to keep the wings in sauce while you are eating.
After saucing them up, get them on your plates and start to enjoy.
A wonderful side dish are my Air Fryer French Fries or my Air Fryer Yuca Fries with Creamy Curry Mustard Sauce.
Air Fryer Hot Wings Better Than Hot Wings Café
Just looking at the Air Fryer Hot Wings makes me drool.
For you chicken wing lovers, I bet you will like my Honey Bourbon Chicken Wings or my my Asian Sticky Chicken Wings. There are tons of chicken wing recipes on my website and I hope you try them all and then let me know what you love.
Air Fryer Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
My new favorite recipe for Wings is my Crispy Honey Garlic Chicken Wings, which incorporates a different method of cooking the wings. Trust me, they are not your regular honey garlic wings. These are something to behold.
More Air Fryer Recipes to Make:
- Air Fryer Garlic Ranch Wings [Low Carb]
- Creamy & Crispy Air Fryer Avocado Fries
- Air Fryer Feta Psiti Greek Baked Feta Hors d’oeuvre
- Air Fryer Garlic Mushrooms Low Carb Keto + Video
Kitchen Equipment and Essentials
- Ultrean 8.5 Quart Air Fryer
- J.A. Henckels Classic 7-inch Hollow Edge Santoku Knife or Kuhn Rikon Kitchen Shears
- Anchor Hocking Glass (Liquid) Measuring Cups
- Rösle Stainless Steel Flat Whisk– a MUST have, probably my most used utensil
- Alton Brown Salt Box
- 3.5 Quart Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl
- Olive Oil Sprayer / Mister for Cooking
- My FANTASTIC Teak Cutting & Charcuterie Board & Compartments
- Silicone Coated Tongs
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Here is your handy printable recipe:
Better than Hot Wings Café, Buffalo Chicken Wings, cooked in an Air Fryer.
Print Pin Save RateIngredients
- 4 pounds Chicken Wing Sections
- 1/2 cup Frank's RedHot Cayenne Pepper Sauce
- 1/2 cup Butter
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 Tablespoons Light Brown Sugar (optional) for sticky wings, add more
- 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
Recommended Products
Instructions
- With a good knife or kitchen shears, separate chicken wings at joint.
- Pat chicken wings dry with a paper towel.
- Spray bottom of air fryer basket with oil.
- Place wings into air fryer basket and spread out. It is okay if wings overlap a bit.
- Cook at 380 degrees for 25 minutes, shaking the basket (or flipping over the wings) half way through.
- When 25 minutes is up, shake the wings and change temperature to 400 degrees.
- Continue to cook the wings for about 5 or 6 more minutes until the wings are very crispy.
- Remove wings from Air Fryer and dump into large mixing bowl. Add Hot Wing Sauce and toss to coat.
- Serve Hot Wings with Blue Cheese Dressing and celery sticks.
Hot Wing Sauce
- While wings are cooking, mix up the Hot Wing Sauce.
- In a mixing cup, add Frank's hot sauce, butter, Worcestershire Sauce, brown sugar and salt.
- Place in microwave and cook for about 35 seconds, or until butter has melted. If you do not have a microwave, use a saucepan on the stove and cook at low heat until hot.
- Remove from microwave and whisk together to combine.
Notes
For a milder sauce, use more butter.
Heat of sauce is determined by the Frank's RedHot® Cayenne Pepper Sauce. If you use less than 4 pounds, or more than 4 pounds of wings, the cook time is the same. If you use more than 4 pounds, you may need to make a larger batch of the sauce.
Nutrition
PIN this Better Than Hot Wings Café Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings!
Better Than Hot Wings Café Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings
Made recipe as directed. Came out perfect!!!
Can’t get enough of these!
Thank you, Joyce! Jill
Best hot wings.. only way to cook them in the air fryer
Thanks, Deanie. Enjoy. Jill
Best ever!
Thank you, Angela. Jill
Oh my gosh! These are fantastic!! You are so right when you say they taste like your favorite buffalo wing cafe’s wings. I will leave out the sugar next time,as I prefer a hotter wing. But the recipe is spot-on. Thank you so much!
I prefer it without the sugar too and when I make them, I leave it off. When my husband makes this recipe, well, he likes adding a bit. Jill
Great recipe. Thanks for sharing!
I just got a air fryer and this was the first recipe I tried. It was AMAZING!!!!! Thank you Jill
Thank you so much, Barbara, I am glad you enjoyed this recipe. Jill
This is the first time I have made wings in my airfryer. I put 12 wings in my 3.5 quart basket. Some of the wings were doubled up, but I shook the basket every seven minutes to turn them over. I followed your recipe exactly and, I have to say, they were the best wings I ever made. Nice and crispy, just how we like them. Thanks for a great recipe!
This wings were delicious. Crispy and not greasy at all. The sauce was the perfect balance of spice and sweet.
I add bbq sauce to your recipe to thicken it and they were GREAT! I’m cooking them for a 2nd time in 2 weeks by request.
This is based on the fact we eat wings every Wends out & my fiancé requested these again.
Temperature and time for air fryer?
I have made these wings twice. First time, as shown. Today I used half the hot sauce and 2 Tbl brown sugar. Both were awesome! Thank you!!
These wings and sauce are the best we’ve ever had
Thank you, Elaine. Jill