Watching football is only half the fun without chicken wings! I’m being generous. For me, game day is boring without a batch of homemade lemon pepper chicken wings. Wings are definitely football watching food. Perfectly finger-friendly and loaded with so much flavor all in a small little package. Golden and crispy on the outside, scented with lemon, and tossed in the most delicious lemon pepper sauce! Would you believe me if I told you these wings are baked or made in the air fryer and not the deep fryer? I have a little trick up my sleeve (read: a secret ingredient) that I use to make to help crisp these wings up int he oven without having to fry them in oil! Take it from someone who refuses to eat bone-in chicken, these wings are seriously dynamite!
Ingredients for lemon pepper wings:
Chicken Wings: I usually buy chicken wings that are already split at the wing joint, but sometimes you find them with the joint attached. If that’s the case, just remove the wing tip (that will burn in the oven.) Then, take the ‘v’ and slice it down the center of the joint to create the drumstick and the wing.Baking powder: is the secret ingredient that I use to make baked chicken wings extra crispy! Make sure you don’t use baking soda here though. Aluminum-free baking powder is alkaline, so it raises the pH of the chicken wings’ skin. This causes the Maillard reaction to take place when we bake these wings. And basically, what it means for us, is that the skin gets golden brown and crispy, crispy, crispy!Seasonings: I use kosher salt, garlic powder, sweet paprika, and lemon pepper seasoning to marinate the wings overnight. You can bake the wings in as little as 30 minutes, but letting them sit and dry out in the refrigerator overnight yields the absolute best results possible.Fresh Lemon Juice + Lemon Zest: Using fresh lemon juice and add it to the melted butter tossing sauce and zest gives these wings the most realistic lemon flavor. The lemon pepper seasoning already contains dry lemon peel, but with fresh lemon zest you also get the wafting fragrance from the lemon oil anytime you come within a foot of these wings!Butter: We’ll make a simple lemon and melted butter sauce to toss the wings in right before serving this appetizer.
How to make crispy lemon pepper wings:
Tips for baking the best chicken wings:
Pat them dry! No seriously. I cannot stress this enough, so I made it part of the instructions. During recipe testing, I let a batch or two slide and I kid you not, the ones that I took the time to lay on paper towels and wipe down yielded significantly better results than the ones where I hadn’t.Don’t skip the baking powder. This is undoubtedly the most crucial ingredients in making baked chicken wings extra crispy!Spread them out and use a wire rack! It’s important to really spread out the wings on the baking sheet. Using a rack ensure that the wings will have air circulating around them. If you happen to have really small wings, they may not all fit on one baking sheet. Instead of cramming them, I suggest baking these in two separate batches. Dry them out further. Though this isn’t mandatory, the additional drying time allows the wings to develop better flavor and definitely much better color!Toss the wings in a large bowl. When the wings are hot from the oven, pop them in a large bowl and drizzle the lemon butter sauce right over them.
If you like this recipe, you might also like these other game day favorites:
Garlic Parmesan WingsFirecracker Chicken MeatballsLoaded Sheet Pan BBQ Chicken NachosCrunchy Buffalo Chicken Jalapeno PoppersSouthwestern Egg Rolls with Avocado Cilantro Sauce
Air fryer: Preheat the air fryer to 400ºF, when hot add a single layer of wings (making sure to not overcrowd the basket. It’s better to do this in batches than all at once!) Bake for 16-22 minutes depending on their size, flipping the wings around the halfway mark. I usually let them go slightly longer with the skin side up for more color!
