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These Air Fryer Buffalo Wings are perfectly crisp in a cooking time of 30 minutes. Make these as a budget-friendly option compared to takeout for your next meal or game day celebration. Enjoy these keto buffalo wings with my homemade blue cheese dressing.
Why Make Keto Buffalo Wings
There are so many reasons to love this crispy air fryer buffalo wings recipe. Some of my top reasons are:
Cheaper Than Takeout
My husband and I love Buffalo Wild Wings, which is great for keto or low-carb because there are plenty of options for everything from their Blazin’, Lemon Pepper Wings, Chiptole BBQ, and Garlic Parmesan wings.
But, take-out multiple times per week can get pretty expensive so it’s best to make your wings at home. This recipe is one of several keto chicken wing recipes on the site that allows you to bring all the flavors of Buffalo Wild Wings at home while saving cash, and, in some cases, carbs.
No Deep Frying
This easy recipe is a great way to make some of the best wings for any occasion without deep frying. For example, you can enjoy these keto buffalo wings for a weeknight meal, or for a game day like the Super Bowl, the NBA finals, and more.
Delicious
After you make this air fryer chicken wings recipe, you’ll definitely add it to your list of the best air fryer chicken wings, and best air fryer recipes overall!
Ingredients Needed
- Chicken Wings: I use thawed cut chicken wings that are sectioned into flats and drums
- Baking Powder: This is for extra crispy skin. Remember to use baking powder and not baking soda.
- Smoked Paprika: If you substitute with regular paprika, you’ll miss out on the distinctive flavor.
- Natural Ancient Sea Salt (optional)
- Black Pepper
- Garlic Powder
- Onion Powder
- Olive Oil: or avocado oil, this is optional for drizzling over the wings before air frying
You can get the full list of ingredient amounts and instructions from the full recipe card at the end of the post.
How to Make Buffalo Wings in an Air Fryer
Like most wings on the site, making air fryer buffalo chicken wings has the same basic steps. I’ll outline them below, but you can also check out the video tutorial.
Prepare the Chicken Wings
- Pat the wings dry with paper towels to remove as much excess moisture as possible. This helps you get extra crispy chicken wings, especially crispy skin and wing tips (if using whole wings).
- Season the wings: Mix the sea salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and baking powder in a small dish or ramekin. My favorite way to season the chicken is to sprinkle the seasoning mixture on the wings and toss to coat.
Crisp the wings in the Air Fryer
- Place wings in a flat, single layer in the air fryer basket.
- Air Fry the chicken at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Set timer 15 minutes, flip the wings, then cook them for 5-15 minutes more, (check at 5 minute intervals) until the skin is crispy enough for you.
Make the buffalo sauce
- Mix all of the ingredients for the homemade buffalo sauce by stirring them in a small bowl with a fork (keep mixing until the melted butter is well incorporated).
- For best results, toss the crispy chicken wings in the Buffalo Sauce mixture in a large bowl and serve immediately with a side of Blue Cheese Dressing.
Top Cooking Tips & FAQs
- Crisp the wings any way you prefer: you can also make baked buffalo chicken wings by using my crispy baked chicken wings recipe.
- Sauce before serving: Right before serving the wings, I toss them in the buffalo hot sauce. This helps give the air fryer wings the crispy, yet saucy taste and prevents them from getting soggy.
- Place parchment paper or foil on the bottom of your air fryer basket to reduce clean up time.
- Flip the wings: Getting the wings crispy quickly requires you to flip them about halfway through. Flipping also gives them a nice golden brown color.
- Remove the chicken wing parts from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before you cook them so that they can come to room temperature and cook more evenly.
How to Store Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Wings
The best way to store any leftover air fryer chicken wings is in an airtight container for the next day (up to 5 days).
Extra Spicy Hot Wings Sauce:
You’ll notice that this recipe includes smoked ghost peppers. It is totally optional to include these, but we really love our food spicy. Adding ghost peppers allowed us to have heat close to what we get when we enjoy Blazin Wings at Buffalo Wild Wings.
My favorite smoked ghost peppers come from Trader Joes, but you can get a powdered version of this online. When adding this, I usually add a dash at a time, whisk the sauce & taste. You can continue adding more until you reach your desired level of spiciness.
What to Serve with Air Fried Buffalo Wings
This recipe has about 3 servings. For me, this worked out to about 5 wings per person.
To make this a meal, I pair this with a keto salad or any one of these side dishes:
To tame the heat, I also add blue cheese or homemade ranch dressing.
More Buffalo Sauce & Hot Wing Recipes:
If you love all things buffalo and hot wings, then here are some other recipes that you should try:
- Baked Buffalo Wings
- Buffalo Chicken Pizza
- Crispy Buffalo Shrimp
- Dry Rub Wings
- Keto “Honey” Sriracha Wings
- Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers
- Keto Buffalo Cauliflower Bites
- Honey Sesame Ghost Pepper Wings
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 Buffalo Wings Recipe
Use DRDAVINAHS at checkout to save on some equipment & ingredients!
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
Chicken Wings
- 1.5 lbs Chicken Wings, sectioned into flats and drums
- 1/4 tsp Natural Ancient Sea Salt
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1/2 tsp Onion Powder
- 1 tbsp Baking Powder, You cannot swap baking soda in this recipe – I promise that the wings will not taste good if you do. If you are on Whole30, omit this ingredient.
- 2 tbsp Avocado Oil, or olive oil, optional for drizzling over the wings before air frying.
Buffalo Wing Sauce
- 1/2 cup Franks Red Hot Wing Sauce
- 1 tbsp Butter, or ghee if you are on Whole30
- 1/4 tsp Smoked Ghost Pepper Chiles , optional – about 2 turns on the Trader Joes grinder
Blue Cheese Dressing
- 1 Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing, omit for Whole30
Instructions
- Remove the chicken wing parts from the refrigerator and pat dry (removing as much moisture as possible helps to have a crispy wing skin)
- Mix the sea salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and baking powder in a small dish or ramekin
- Sprinkle seasoning mixture on the wings and toss to coat
- Place wings on a flat single layer in the air fryer basket.
- Drizzle over the oil or spray the wings lightly with your favorite cooking spray.
- Air fry the chicken wings at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes. I set my timer 15 minutes, flip the wings, then air fry them again for 10-15 minutes more.*
- Mix all of the ingredients for the Buffalo Wing sauce by stirring them in a small bowl with a fork (keep mixing until the melted butter is well incorporated)
- Toss the wings in the Buffalo Sauce mixture and serve immediately with a side of Blue Cheese Dressing
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Details
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!
