Bourbon Maple Air Fryer Chicken Wings

Sweet and sticky air fryer chicken wings covered in a homemade Bourbon and maple bbq sauce!

Chicken wings are so good, right? But they can be messy and tedious to make, especially if you like them well done and crispy like me. You could either deep fry them and suffer the huge amounts of oil they absorb, bake them in the oven for a healthier version like these baked Parmesan garlic wings, or make them in the air fryer! These chicken wings take about 12 minutes to fully cook and then a few extra minutes to coat them with a homemade Bourbon and maple bbq sauce. Even if you don't make these air fryer chicken wings, the sauce is definitely a keeper!

How to make air fryer chicken wings

1. Preparing the wings. Trim the wings into flats and drumettes, which are the meatier section of the wing and separate. Trim any large pieces of skin and discard. Season on both sides.

2. Cooking the air fryer chicken wings. You may have to do this in batches. My Cosori Pro II Air Fryer is 5.8 qt in size and I can fit about 10 wings in the basket but could probably squeeze in another 4. You don't want to pile the wings on top of each other as it'll affect overall cook time. If you do have a lot of wings to cook, you can heat your oven to 350 and place the them on a baking sheet to stay warm while you continue cooking the rest in the air fryer.
Cook the wings for 6 minutes and then flip them over and cook for a further six minutes. If you're in any doubt if they might  not be ready, you can always poke them with a thermometer and they should be 165 degrees in the thickest part.

Tips for making great air fryer chicken wings

• Make sure to trim off any excess skin on the wings. Skin usually turns to fat and lots of grease which is nice to avoid.
• Before cooking, spray the wings lightly with an oil spray.
• Wipe out the air fryer basket after each batch of cooked wings and you'll get less burned black pieces on the next set of wings.
• After the wings are fully cooked you can either toss them in the bbq sauce or brush the sauce on the wings and cook for another two minutes to get that sticky, sweet glaze on each wing.
• Once all of the wings have been cooked, I like to add them all back into the basket and give them one last brush with sauce. Cook for another minute just to warm up the wings from the first batch. It doesn't matter at this point f they are all on top of each other as they are fully cooked.

For variation you might be interested in our salmon bite recipe.