Oven Baked Chicken Wings – No Baking Powder

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These meaty, crispy, flavorful Oven Baked Wings are the perfect snack for movie nights, game days, and family get-togethers. A tasty, simple recipe with NO baking powder! And NO metallic aftertaste!

Crispy, Tasty Oven Baked Wings – No Baking Powder Recipe

A couple of weeks ago, I was considering my Super Bowl snack menu and decided to audition some recipes for wings.

Though I had my own thoughts about spice and flavor profiles, I’d never made wings before. A little online sleuthing showed me that baking powder appears in most recipes for oven baked in wings. So, that’s what I used in my first attempt.

And, let me tell you, I just hated them! 

The wings that came out of my oven looked gorgeous. However, even though I used no aluminum baking powder, they had a distinct metallic aftertaste that was just awful. I ended up tossing the whole batch.

A little more internet research told me I wasn’t the only person who couldn’t abide the taste of baking powder in wings. Even so, I saw almost no recipes for oven baked wings with no baking powder.

Clearly, it was time to do something about that!

After a little trial and error, I came up with a truly tasty recipe for meaty, crispy, flavorful oven baked wings with no baking powder. (And no icky aftertaste!)

It requires just three simple ingredients – wings, butter, and spices – plus time. But more about that later.

For now, let’s talk about the most important ingredient.

Oven Baked Wings – Prepping The Wings

Instead of a whole chicken wing, we’ll be cooking and serving individual sections of the wings, sometimes called “party wings.”

Buying prepared “party wings” at the market might save you a little time. But my recommendation is to only buy fresh party wings if you can find them. The frozen variety is usually packaged in a “salt solution” that’s too salty.

Buying whole, fresh wings tends to be a lot cheaper than pre-prepped wings. Cutting them into party wings is simple and doesn’t take much time.

Here’s how to do it.

Whole chicken wings have three sections and two joints, one much larger than the other.

The first thing to do is bend the wing to find the joints, and then cut through each one using a sharp knife or poultry shears. 

This will give you three sections of wing. Save the two meaty parts – the drumette and the wingette (sometimes called the flat because of its shape). These are the sections we’ll use to make our oven baked wings.

The skinny wing tips don’t have much meat, so we won’t use them for our wings. But they’d be great for making soup or stock. So, you may want to save them to freeze them for that purpose.

Once the wings are prepped, we’re ready to get cooking!

The Secret To Terrific Oven Baked Wings – Seasoning And Time

As I said above, almost all the oven baked wing recipes I’ve seen online use baking powder. The reason? It’s supposed to make the wings crispy.

And it does, to a degree. But the trade-off in taste isn’t worth it to me.

Also, let’s just say it up front, oven baked wings will never be as crispy as fried wings. But it’s still possible to make tasty, pretty darned crispy wings in the oven and with no baking powder.

My secret employs the same method I use when roasting a whole chicken, seasoning plus time.

After patting the wings with paper towels to blot away any liquid, I rub them all over with a blend of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

Then I place the seasoned wings on a rack and let them sit uncovered in the refrigerator for at least four hours and up to twenty-four hours.

The salt helps draw moisture out of the wings, as well as season them. So, the longer you can let the seasoned wings rest, the crispier the skin will be once they’re baked.

Oven Baked Wings With No Baking Powder – Spices, Baking, And Serving

Once the wings have rested, I brush them all over with a blend of melted butter and spices.

The butter adds a little extra fat and flavor that I like. Also, it still lets you cook the wings at a pretty high temperature without burning. Cooking in a very hot oven is going to make them crispier.

Another option would be to use a neutral, high smoke point oil – such as avocado, vegetable, or grapeseed oil. Please note that extra virgin olive oil is not a good option here as it will burn at high temperatures. 

When it comes to spices, you could just bake these wings with salt and pepper. However, I love adding some extra, no-salt spices to the melted butter.

I made three flavors of oven baked wings – lemon pepper (with a no-salt lemon pepper seasoning), smoked paprika with a little ground chipotle pepper, and Chinese five-spice.

But when it comes to spice, it’s fine to choose your own adventure!

Use whatever no-salt spice you like in a ratio of about three teaspoons of ground spice to four tablespoons of melted butter. That will be enough for about four pounds of wings.

If you want to make a variety of wing flavors, just reduce the amounts. That’s what I did, making 3 flavors, in 3 separate are little bowls. Here’s how the math would work for 4 pound of wings –

2 flavors – 2 T butter and 1.5 tsp spice

3 flavors – 4 tsp butter and 1 tsp spice

4 flavors – 1 T butter and 3/4 tsp spice

Serving wings with a really yummy dipping sauce is part of the fun.

I paired my lemon pepper wings with blue cheese dressing, used classic ranch for the smoked paprika wings, and sweet chile sauce for the Chinese five-spice flavors.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your own sauce and spice combos!

Buffalo sauce is always a crowd pleaser. A thick teriyaki sauce, like Yoshida’s, would be great with Asian flavored wings. Just about any flavor of store-bought Bitchin’ Sauce would taste terrific with wings.

However you decide to spice ‘em up and sauce ‘em up, your friends and family will love these Oven Baked Wings. Make some soon!

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