Easy oven-baked chicken wings

Method

1. Pat the wings completely dry, then toss them with the oil, baking powder, salt and pepper, right on the sheet pan if you don’t want to dirty a bowl.
2. Spread them skin side up in a single layer, with space between pieces. Crowding is the one real way to ruin this: crowded wings steam instead of roast.
3. Bake at 225°C for 40 to 45 minutes, flipping once at the halfway point. No rack, no further fussing.
4. Pull them when the skin is deeply browned and blistered and the meat pulls cleanly from the bone at the thickest part of a flat, generally 74°C to 78°C.
5. Toss hot, straight off the pan, in whichever sauce you’re using, or squeeze the lemon over. Sauce goes on now and never earlier, or the skin softens under it before you get to the table.

Notes

• Baking powder is what makes “easy” also crisp. It’s alkaline, which speeds browning and lets the skin dry and blister rather than turning to rubber, the same trick behind Christoph’s chicken rub, which has the full explanation. Use baking powder, not bicarbonate of soda, which is much stronger and tastes soapy.
• No rack needed. At 225°C in a single layer, wings render and crisp on a bare sheet pan; the fat that pools underneath never reaches high enough to touch the skin on top. Line the pan with foil for easy cleanup if you like, that’s about cleanup, not the cooking.
• Skip the wait, or don’t. This recipe doesn’t need a dry-brine rest, straight into the oven works fine. If you happen to have 10 to 15 minutes while the oven heats, salting that far ahead draws out a little more surface moisture, but it will not make or break the result the way it does for a whole bird.
• This is the low-effort route on purpose. There’s a more deliberate version of baked wings elsewhere on this site, with overnight air-drying, a wire rack and a two-stage bake. This one is the version for a Tuesday.

Ingredient substitutions

• No baking powder in the cupboard? Skip it. The skin still crisps reasonably well from the heat and the thin oil coating, just without the shattering finish.
• Kosher salt can be swapped for fine salt at about two-thirds the quantity, or use Christoph’s chicken rub in place of the salt and pepper for more flavour without an extra step.
• Sauce. Any of the three listed works, or reach for hot honey instead of a savoury sauce for something sweeter, or serve plain with ranch dip on the side rather than tossing them at all.

Sources consulted

• USDA: safe minimum internal temperature chart
• Serious Eats: the science of crispy chicken skin

Good with

• Hot honey
• Ranch dip
• The crispiest baked chicken wings

From Christoph Mayer

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