Poppy O'Toole's air fryer recipe for perfect fried chicken

 (Haarala Hamilton)
(Haarala Hamilton)

If I hadn’t followed the path of a potato obsession, I think I may have gone for chicken wings.

I love how versatile they are. A different sauce or flavour topping and you’ve got a whole different dish each time. Like potatoes, you can get messy with them, dunk them, lick your fingers and eat endless amounts. That’s the food I’m down for. Wings in the air fryer make sense because it’s efficient, there’s no mess and the results are just how you’d want your wings to turn out. Flavoursome on the outside and succulent on the inside, this recipe comes with my three favourite ways to eat chicken wings. Pick your favourite of my favourites and enjoy!

Serves: as many as you have wings for

Ingredients

  1. 100–200g/¾ - 1⅔ cups plain/all purpose flour (depending on how many wings)

  2. 1 tsp smoked paprika

  3. 1 tsp garlic powder

  4. 1 tsp ground coriander

  5. 1 tsp cayenne pepper

  6. 2 tsps salt

  7. 6–10 chicken wings per person, separated into drums and flats

  8. Vegetable oil, for spraying

Method

  1. Heat your air fryer to 190°C/375°F.

  2. Mix together the flour and all the spices and the salt in a mixing bowl, to get everything incorporated. Tip the wing pieces into the flour mixture and give them a good toss.

  3. Give your air-fryer basket a little spray with some oil.

  4. Dust of any excess flour from your wings and place them in the air-fryer basket (for optimum deliciousness, do this in batches of up to 10 wings at a time, depending on the size of your air fryer) and cook for 15 minutes, until golden and cooked through.

  5. Either enjoy them plain and crispy or try one of the saucy variations below. Just toss your cooked wings in the sauce of your choice.

My suggestions

Buffalo hot sauce. Simple yet effective – combine half a bottle of (Frank’s) hot sauce with 20g/1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of runny honey. Heat it up until melted together, then toss your wings in the sauce. Voilà!

Sticky sweet soy sauce. Get a pan. Bring to the boil 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of runny honey, 1 teaspoon of rice wine vinegar, 1 finely grated garlic clove, 1 teaspoon of finely grated fresh ginger and 1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup. Once boiling, remove from the heat, do a taste test, adjust as you fancy, and once you’re happy, toss them wings in.

Lemon and black pepper. Grab 1 lemon, zested and juiced, 1 teaspoon of cracked black pepper and 20–30g/1–2 tablespoons of melted butter. Mix the lemon zest, black pepper and butter together, then add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice at a time until you are happy with the sourness. Season with salt and toss them wings.

Extract taken from Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Air Fryer Cookbook by Poppy O’Toole (Bloomsbury Publishing, £20 Hardback)