Sous Vide Chicken Wings

Make juicy, tender, fall-off-the-bone wings with this recipe for Sous Vide Chicken Wings! Dozens of wings can be vacuum sealed at a time and cooked in a sous vide for 2 hours. To finish the wings, pop them under the broiler in the oven, then toss them with sauce for delicious Buffalo Chicken Wings!

One of my favorite reasons to use a sous vide, over another cooking method, is that you can cook meat from frozen, in the same amount of time it takes to cook it fresh. At my house, we vacuum seal a dozen wings in one bag, then pop them in the freezer. Whenever we’re in the mood for wings, they go straight from the freezer into the sous vide!

After a 2 hour water bath in the sous vide, the wings are ready to eat. Because wings are always best served with a crispy skin on the outside, I recommend using an air fryer, or broiling the wings in the oven, after the sous vide. It only takes about 5 minutes, and the result is delicious!

The wings can be tossed in a sauce or left dry. The chicken wing seasoning used on these wings is so delicious, they’re just as good without the sauce, as they are tossed with it!

Ingredients

• Chicken wings – I recommend purchasing “party wings” which contain both the drumettes and the wingettes or “flats”, already separated. Otherwise, if you purchase whole chicken wings, you’ll have to separate the drummette, wingette and tips yourself. The wing tips are mostly cartilage, bone and skin, so you can either discard them, or toss them in the freezer to use for chicken stock at a later date.
• Salt – to season the wings before vaccum sealing them in a bag.
• Olive oil – or another neutral flavored oil, like canola, avocado or vegetable oil.
• Chicken wing seasoning – the real star of the show is this seasoning blend. Made up of 6 simple spices that you probably already have in your pantry, including salt, chili powder, smoked paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. You can adjust the amount of cayenne pepper in the seasoning mix, depending on which spice level you like your wings. It’s easy to mix up in 5 minutes and can be stored in the pantry for up to 6 months. Mix up a big batch, and you’ll have it on hand anytime you want wings!
• Buffalo wing sauce – this ingredient is optional. Once the sous vide wings are cooked, you can toss them in the sauce, or eat them dry. The rub adds so much flavor, these wings are delicious dry or sauced. You can also serve the sauce on the side for dipping, instead of tossing the wings in the sauce.

Instructions

I’ve included step by step photos below to make this recipe super easy to follow at home. For the full detailed recipe instructions and ingredient quantities, scroll to the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

1. Vacuum seal the chicken wings. Add one dozen chicken wings to a quart-sized vacuum sealer bag. Season the chicken wings with salt. Vacuum seal the bag closed, using a vacuum sealer.
   • Note: if you don’t have a vacuum sealer, you can use a quart size freezer-safe zipper bag and the water displacement method. To do so, you’ll need to place each bag with chicken wings in it almost all of the way under water, leaving just about an inch of the top of the bag open, the water will press out all of the air around the food in the bag, you can then seal the bag closed.
2. Sous vide the wings. Place the vacuum sealed bags of wings in a large pot, or container, filled with water. If properly sealed, the chicken wings should sink in the water. You want to make sure that the wings are completely submerged in the water for proper sous vide cooking. Attach a sous vide to the pot and set the temperature to 160°F. Set a timer for 2 hours.
3. Dry the wings. After 2 hours, remove the bags of wings from the pot of water. Cut the bags open and use tongs to remove the wings. Place them on paper towels and dry them completely by patting them dry on all sides with paper towels.
4. Season the wings. Place the dry chicken wings on a cutting board. Drizzle a light layer of olive oil over the chicken wings and rub the oil into the wings. Sprinkle the wings evenly with the chicken wing seasoning (click link for the recipe). Rub it onto all sides of the chicken wings until they’re fully covered in the seasoning.
5. Finish the wings. While the wings are fully cooked when removed from the sous vide bags, they won’t have a crispy skin, unless they’re finished in an air fryer or in the oven.
   • To finish the wings in the oven, place them in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Preheat the oven broiler to high. Place the wings under the broiler for 3 minutes, flip and broil for another 2-3 minutes on the other side.
   • To finish the wings in an air fryer, place them in an air fryer basket in an even layer. It’s very important that each wing has space around it, so that the air can circulate around the wings and get them crispy. I can fit 9-12 wings, with plenty of space around each wing, in my 5.8 quart air fryer basket. Cook the wings for 3 minutes at 400°F, flip and cook for an additional 3 minutes at 400°F.
   • Sauce the wings. Once finished in the oven or air fryer, either serve the wings immediately, or immediately toss them in your favorite wing sauce, like buffalo sauce. Add the wings to a large bowl, pour in the sauce and use tongs to toss the wings until they’re fully coated in the sauce. I recommend 1/4 cup sauce for 1 pound of wings. Make sure the sauce is room temperature or warm. If you toss the cooked wings in cold sauce, it will cool down the wings.

You can also deep fry, pan fry or grill the wings to finish them. If deep frying the wings, I recommend cooking them for 3-4 minutes in a deep fryer. If pan frying them, I recommend cooking them for 3 minutes per side, over medium-high heat on the stove.

To grill the wings, I recommend heating a grill to medium-high heat, around 400°F, then grilling the wings for 3 minutes per side.

Serve the sous vide chicken wings with blue cheese dressing or ranch dressing as a dipping sauce. Or switch things up and try dipping them in this Roasted Garlic Dip (my favorite dipping sauce!) or Avocado Ranch Dressing.

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