Every backyard cookout needs a plate or two of chicken wings, surrounded by plenty of dipping sauces. They’re easy to customize, so everyone gets a choice in flavors like oven-baked wings with cowboy butter or wings drenched in Buffalo sauce with celery to go alongside. And if you smoke your wings before cooking them up, you’ll add a whole new level of flavor to whatever style you make.
A little time in the smoker pairs especially well with wings, like the ones that celebrity chef and cookbook author Tini Younger likes to make and munch on. She took a break from whipping up some of her famous mac and cheese – and collaborating with Nestlé on Carnation Kickin’ Jalapeño Flavored Evaporated Milk – to answer a few of our questions on how to smoke chicken wings before frying them. And while she was talking chicken with Chowhound, she mentioned one of her favorite wing recipes: “I think my go-to (chicken wings style) right now has been a chipotle honey, you can’t go wrong with anything chipotle honey,” Younger said. “I’ll make my own chipotle honey rub with different seasonings and take adobo peppers and make a marinade to it and throw it on the grill.”
Adding a layer of smoke to your wings will infuse the meat with even more flavor. And it doesn’t take too much extra time or work to get that rich, woodsy taste to saturate your wings before you fry them.
How to avoid overdone chicken wings when smoking them before frying
Slow-smoking before quick-frying yields extra delicious chicken wings that stay moist and come out fall-off-the-bone tender. One easy way to do it is to smoke them for around 50 minutes in a smoker set to 225 degrees Fahrenheit and then fry them in 375-degree-Fahrenheit oil for four or five minutes. Tini Younger says, “If I were doing it, I would probably smoke it to a certain point of temperature, not there yet, and then batter it up and then fry it so it gets that perfect 165 [degrees Fahrenheit].”
Younger also suggests playing with different wood chips for smoking to create different flavor profiles in the wings. Hickory, mesquite, and fruit woods like apple all bring their own vibe to the meat, creating flavorful combinations when combined with rubs and sauces.
Consider the size of your chicken wings when you’re smoking them, too. Jumbo wings take longer to cook than party wings, which have less meat, so they cook faster and usually turn out crispier. Younger recommends a meat thermometer to monitor the temperature accurately for chicken on the grill and on the smoker. “Every time you open it, the temperature drops so it’s not a consistent cook. So just get a meat thermometer, pop it in the chicken, and then just let it do its thing,” she says.
