Cranberry Chicken Wings Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (2025)

FAQs

Why do you soak wings in buttermilk? ›

I loved learning how the acids and fats from the buttermilk help tenderize chicken when it's marinated overnight.

This was the easiest of the hacks: Just toss the wings in a teaspoon each of salt and baking powder before baking. The wings came out of the oven quite crisp, and were the only wings that came out matte – with no oil sheen – which seemed to help them absorb the sauce, in both good and bad ways.

bake on low then high – usually, the fat under the skin is part of the reason why baked wings don't get really crispy. In this recipe, we start at a low temp first which melts the fat under the skin, then we crank up the oven which makes the skin super crispy!

Cornstarch. When you coat chicken wings in plain cornstarch mixed with a little kosher salt before baking, you are rewarded with ultra tasty, divinely crispy wings with zero metallic flavor.

When mixed with the flour, the cornstarch makes the flour coating crispier and gives it that golden brown color! (It has to do with prevention of gluten development.) The baking powder reacts with the oil and creates tiny air bubbles, which also helps form a crispy coating.

Add the chicken wings and be sure they are all coated well in buttermilk. Cover the bowl and chill for at least 2 hours, or up to 4 hours.

One of the best ways out there to make them truly sing is to use a dry rub. Especially when compared to marinade or a simple sauce, a dry rub is going to give chicken wings a deeper flavor, a crisp exterior, and save you all of the time waiting for them to marinate.

Homogenized Milk

Marinate your chicken wings in Farmers Milk before putting them on the grill. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a sealable plastic bag. Add the wings, seal the bag, and mix. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight (ideally).

Are you battering or crumb-coating? You need to dredge your chicken in flour, and if you're using crumbs you then need to give it a dunk in a beaten egg before you bread it too. This helps the coating to stay on.

How to get the crispiest wings? ›

By baking chicken wings at 400°F, you can achieve the perfect balance of crispy exterior and juicy interior in just 40-50 minutes of cooking time. These wings were tossed in paprika, garlic powder and black pepper before baking.

This is because if you add too much, you will taste that alkaline flavor (the same flavor that makes a pretzel, a pretzel, you know?). Simply combine the baking powder with salt, pepper, and any other dried spices that you like on your wings — garlic powder, onion powder, and smoked paprika are all delicious.

“Baked chicken wings are a healthier alternative to fried ones,” says dietitian Katie Rankell, director of the UCI Health Weight Management Program. She notes that a typical serving of fried wings — two pieces — will weigh in with 309 calories, 21 grams of fat and more than 1,000 mg of sodium.

Baking soda works similarly to salt, in that it helps draw moisture to the surface of the chicken. This then quickly evaporates, leading to a drier- thinner skin ― that's much more likely to crisp up. Baking soda and salt go great together in a dry brine because of the drying and crispifying (yep) effects they combine.

You can velvet meat and make it melt-in-your-mouth tender by quickly tossing chunks of beef or chicken in about ¾ tsp of baking soda for about 15 minutes before your next stir fry, then rinse and pat the meat dry before putting in the pan.

To achieve the best results when marinating chicken with baking soda, consider the following tips: Use in Moderation: Baking soda is potent, so it's important to use it in moderation. Too much baking soda can give the chicken an unpleasant aftertaste.

That trick is a sprinkling of baking powder, and it'll get you the crispiest, crackliest bites of fatty, salty skin imaginable, whether you're cooking just one thigh, a plate of wings, or an entire bird. Baking powder, it turns out, is good for quite a lot more than baking.