These Instant Pot Chicken Wings can be enjoyed with your favorite wing sauce, like a spicy buffalo hot sauce or a BBQ sauce. A keto friendly, low carb appetizer.
These chicken wings are finger lickin’ good! The meat is flavored with dry seasonings and pressure cooked until deliciously tender. Then they’re tossed with a spicy buffalo sauce and broiled for a crisper finish. Just before serving, they’re tossed again with additional sauce for extra flavor. Yum!
Chicken Wing Prep
The most time consuming part of this recipe is preparing the chicken wings. I like to cut off most of the fat, but I leave the skin on. This is mostly due to my taste preferences, so you can trim as much or as little of the fat and skin as you like, depending on how you like your wings. I find that kitchen shears are very useful for this job.
The next step is tossing the trimmed wings with dry seasonings. I use a simple mix of smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and garlic powder (similar to what I used for Instant Pot Pulled Pork). To get the spices evenly distributed over the wings, I add everything to a gallon-sized ziplock bag and toss until the wings are well-coated. Easy!
Sauce Ideas
I use buffalo sauce because that’s what I prefer on my chicken wings. They usually come in mild, medium, and hot varieties, so you should be able to find something suitable for your taste buds. Sometimes they’re sold with labels like “wing sauce.”
Read the ingredients before buying — check that there’s no added sugar and that it’s just hot sauce (peppers, salt, water, vinegar). There should be about 1g carbs per 1 tablespoon serving, which is what the below nutrition information assumes.
Other hot sauce ideas include sriracha, chipotles in adobo, gochujang (Korean chili sauce), and coconut curry.
For those of you that can’t handle the heat, grab a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce for this recipe. If you’re low carb, you can make your own keto friendly BBQ sauce.
Other non-spicy sauces include teriyaki, fruit glazes, herby green sauces, and creamy tomato sauces.
Pressure Cooker Details
I used a 6 quart Instant Pot. There was plenty of room for the two pounds of chicken wings. You can easily double the ingredients if you’re cooking for a crowd. If you do so, keep the pressure cooking time the same.
This recipe also works for smaller or larger pressure cookers.
I use fresh chicken wings. I haven’t tried cooking frozen ones, but it should work if you add another 2 minutes to the pressure cooking time.
Serving
Just before serving, toss the chicken wings with extra sauce to give them another coating of flavor. This is optional, but it gives the wings a nice shine.
You can serve them alongside baby carrots and celery sticks. If you want some kind of dip to help neutralize the spicy flavors, prepare ranch or blue cheese dressing.
Enjoy!
Instant Pot Chicken Wings
These Instant Pot Chicken Wings can be enjoyed with your favorite wing sauce, like a spicy buffalo hot sauce or a BBQ sauce.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds chicken wings (about 18)
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup your favorite hot sauce, plus more if desired
Dry seasonings:
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
-
Prepare chicken wings by trimming off most of the fat but leaving the skin on; kitchen shears are helpful. If moist, pat dry with paper towels. Add to a gallon-size resealable bag.
-
In a small bowl, combine all seasoning ingredients and stir together. Add the seasoning mix to the resealable bag with the wings. Toss until the wings are well-coated.
-
Add 1 cup water to the pressure cooker pot. Place a trivet inside and the seasoned wings on top.
-
Secure and seal the lid. Cook for 10 minutes at high pressure, followed by a manual pressure release.
-
While waiting for the wings to cook, prepare a foil-lined baking sheet fitted with a baking rack. Spray with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
-
Position an oven rack about 8 inches from the broiler element. Set the broiler on high.
-
When the wings are done pressure cooking, transfer them to a large bowl. Toss with hot sauce until well-coated. Place on the prepared baking rack, arranging in a single layer.
-
Broil the wings until they start to blacken on top, about 5 minutes. Flip and broil until the other side starts to blacken, 3 to 5 minutes.
-
Transfer the wings to a large bowl and toss with additional sauce if desired. Serve while hot.
Nutrition Info
This recipe yields 2 g net carbs per serving.
| Nutrition Facts Per Serving |
| Calories 450 | |
| Total Fat 19g | 29% |
| Saturated Fat 5g | 24% |
| Trans Fat 0g | |
| Cholesterol 170mg | 57% |
| Sodium 1000mg | 42% |
| Potassium 50mg | 1% |
| Total Carb 2.5g | 1% |
| Dietary Fiber 0.5g | 3% |
| Sugars 0g | |
| Protein 63g |
I’m confused – if we use say a sugar free BBQ sauce – is your recipe still call for adding the dry seasonings or is that only for the bufffalo sauce?
If you use a BBQ sauce, I would still add the dry seasonings, which impart extra flavor to the chicken wings while they’re being pressure-cooked in the Instant Pot.
Just made these last night and they were great. Actually followed the directions except for using teryaki on half and Frans and butter on the other half. The crowd went wild. These wings were the juicy,moist,tender with a crunch wing. Used the oven broiler on half and the gas grill on half,both came out perfect. Nice recipe,thank you
Do you have to put a hot sauce on before you put them in to the oven to broil?
That’s correct, Andree. See Step 7 where the wings are tossed in hot sauce before broiling in Step 8.
can you use boneless chicken tenders instead with this recipe?
I haven’t tested this recipe with chicken tenders, Nicole. If you want to give this a try, I think the recipe’s stated cooking time of 10 minutes would work fine for tenders.
I like to do garlic parmesian wings. Just use butter, garlic and sprinkle with parmesian cheese at the end.
Can the wings be stacked on the trivet?
Yes that’s fine. See photo above in my post where I have them stacked on the trivet.
The best wings ever 👌. Forget restaurants or store bought..
I made this tonight for the Superbowl. It was delicious. Thank you for the recipe. It does need to be crispier, but it had lots of flavor and fall off the bone deliciousness.
Just pulled out the wings and the meat is falling off the bone. Cant wait to try them.
Can you use an air fryer instead of the broiler?
What if I don’t have a trivet for my
Instant pot? Is there something else I coilild use?
Do you have a steam rack? That should work as well.
I am making these tonight, but have 4 lbs. should it still be 10 minutes?
Yep, the cooking time stays the same.
I cooked 3 frozen lbs. for 15 min. Came out great.
If you double the recipe do you add more water or the same amount?
I would use the same amount of water.
Do you add the dry seasonings and the sauce?
See step 2 of the recipe — that’s when the dry seasonings are added. Step 7 is when the sauce is added.
Did you just throw all the wings to broil?
Correct. After pressure cooking, I toss them with hot sauce to coat them, and then place them on a baking rack for broiling. I spread them out on the rack so they’re not touching and so they can get an even broil. After broiling, sometimes I toss with more hot sauce again.
Touchdown! These were fantastic. The only downside was that I did not make enough,😉
Haha I know the feeling!! Hope you get to make these again soon, with 2x or 3x the amount 😉
I made these with Costco frozen wings and still used a rub. I added 3 min to the time but think it was too long. The wings were so tender and definitively put on broil after to get a nice crisp. Just maybe too fall of the bone.
Thanks for your feedback, Judy! Yeah, 3 minutes extra sounds too long. Glad you still enjoyed them 🙂
Can’t wait to try this recipe. I did another Instant Pot frozen wing recipe, they were okay, but this looks like a much better way of doing it.
I had all of these ingredients and decided to make this for dinner tonight. Superb! The broiler really enhances the texture and taste. If you’re on the fence about it, don’t skip that step!