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Want the taste of smoky BBQ wings without starting up a grill? Well, these Air Fryer BBQ Wings take 30-minutes to cook using my favorite air fryer, some pantry spices, and my homemade keto BBQ sauce recipe (or any BBQ sauce that you prefer). Enjoy these as part of an everyday quick meal or during summer holidays like Juneteenth and July 4th with my keto coleslaw, air fryer broccoli, keto cornbread, or other side dish.
Why Make BBQ Wings in the Air Fryer
- Grilled, smoky flavor without the grill: top this with my bbq sauce recipe and use the air fryer to get the charred look and smoky, grilled taste that you’re used to when cooking bbq wings on the grill.
- Easy: these take 30-minutes to cook (several hours less than when you make bbq wings in the crockpot) and just a few more minutes to prep them
- Great for Dinner or Events: these make a great weeknight dinner option, but are also the perfect air fryer football food.
- Keto-friendly & Low-carb Option: if you use my keto bbq sauce recipe or buy a sugar-free bbq sauce like this stevia-sweetened one, you can have all the flavor of BBQ chicken minus the sugar that makes up most bbq sauces.
Ingredients Needed
- Chicken Wings: you can leave these whole or cut them into drums and flats
- Spices: You will use most of the same spices as my oven baked chicken wings and air fryer fried wings. Those include garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, salt and black pepper. I also include Italian seasoning as the herbs taste great with BBQ sauce.
- Liquid Smoke: I’m using Wright’s hickory-flavored (you can pick it up at the market or click to get it online). You can also use mesquite or any other liquid smoke you enjoy.
- BBQ Sauce: to keep this dish keto-friendly and low-carb, I’m using my 15-minute keto bbq sauce recipe. But, to save time or if you’re not following a ketogenic or low-carb way of eating, feel free to enjoy these with whatever smokey bbq sauce that you enjoy.
How to Make Them
You can find the video tutorial for how to make air fryer bbq chicken wings in the recipe card or in the body of the post. The main steps are:
- Pat the chicken wings dry with a paper towel to remove any extra moisture
- Mix the BBQ chicken dry rub in a small bowl and toss the chicken wings to coat
- Add the wings to the air fryer and cook on 400 degrees for 15 minutes (side 1) and 10 minutes (side 2)
- Add your favorite BBQ sauce and cook the wings for 5-10 minutes more, being careful not to burn the BBQ sauce
Top Cooking Tips & FAQs
- Save the sauce until the end: I add BBQ sauce to the wings during the final minutes of cooking to prevent the sauce from burning.
- Use wing parts to fit the most wings: you can use either whole chicken wings or wing parts. But, you can fit the most wings in the cooking basket, by using wing parts
- Line the air fryer basket for an even easier clean-up: the air fryer cooking basket on the Ninja Foodi is dishwasher-safe so lining the basket is not necessary. But, if you don’t have a dishwasher or want to immediately cook something else in your Ninja Foodi, line the basket with parchment paper or foil.
Can you use frozen chicken wings?
This recipe was not tested with frozen chicken wings and I do not recommend using them. When meat is frozen and cooked, it tends to cook unevenly.
Instead, if you have frozen wings, I recommend submerging them in a large bowl cold water to thaw them in about 30 minutes.
Can you use a double rack to make more wings at a time?
I haven’t tried to make more wings than listed in the recipe card. But, when I use a double rack generally, the only change is cook time.
If you want to try to make more wings at a time, simply adjust the cook time for the wings before adding the sauce.
Recommended Side Dishes & Drinks
- Keto Coleslaw
- Air Fryer Roasted Broccoli
- Sugar-free Lemonade
- Keto Blueberry Iced Tea Lemonade
- Keto Cornbread
More Keto BBQ Recipes
- Air Fryer BBQ Chicken Breasts
- Keto BBQ Ribs
- Grilled Lemon Garlic Shrimp Foil Packets
- Low Carb Korean BBQ Ribs
- Bacon Wrapped BBQ Chicken Kabobs
- BBQ Chicken Thighs
If you try this recipe, please stop back and leave it a star rating and/or a review in the comments. Stay connected & share photos of your creations with me & others on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!
Air Fryer BBQ Wings
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Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs Chicken Wings, cut into parts – drum & flat
- Olive Oil, about 2 tbsp is needed for drizzling
- 1/3 cup Keto BBQ Sauce, click for the recipe
BBQ Chicken Spice Mix
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp Italian seasoning
Instructions
- Remove the chicken wings from the refrigerator and pat dry (removing as much moisture as possible helps to have a crispy wing skin)
- Mix the spice mixture in a small bowl
- Sprinkle seasoning mixture on the wings and toss to coat
- Place wings on a flat layer in the air fryer basket. Drizzle olive oil on top.
- Cook the wings for 15 minutes at 400 degrees
- Flip the wings with tongs and cook them at 400 degrees for 10 more minutes
- Use a baste brush to apply BBQ sauce to both sides of the wings
- Cook for 5 additional minutes at 400 degrees to char the sauce a bit.
- Serve with additional bbq sauce on the side.
Recipe Notes
The nutrition facts come from entering the recipe ingredients into Spoonacular API, a database of food ingredients. They may vary for any recipe based on the exact product used. The keto sweeteners I use have 0g net carbs & are not included because sugar alcohols do not impact most people. This is provided as a courtesy, but you can do your own calculations if you wish!
