The Perfect Crock Pot Chicken Wings

Chicken wings are one of my husband’s favorite appetizers. He is always experimenting with a new chicken wings recipe and a new way of cooking them. He loves to cook chicken wings every which way- fried, baked, grilled, and in the crock pot. Most recently he has settled into a crock pot chicken wings routine because we like how it renders off so much of the fat and leaves the meat so tender, juicy, and easy to get off the bone. After we cook the chicken wings in the crock pot (aka slow cooker), we crisp them up in the oven for just a few minutes and they come out so perfect! You will love these crispy crockpot chicken wings for a super bowl party or just for any day of the week.

When Carrot Krate, a local community supported agriculture CSA delivery service, asked me if I could come up with a chicken wings recipe featuring some local farms, I knew my husband was up for the challenge. We love supporting local small businesses. I unboxed my Carrot Krate which featured free- range chicken wings from Katharos Farm, Nashville Heat hot sauces, Williams Raw Honey, and Sriracha, Shallot, & Scallion Butter from The Chattanooga Butter Company.

With these tasty ingredients for inspiration, it was super easy to come up with a slow cooker wings recipe. Here’s how to cook crockpot chicken wings and three different chicken wings sauces to use on crock pot hot wings from mild to spicy.

Crispy Crock Pot Chicken Wings Recipe

4 servings, about 4-5 for each person (so a great appetizer or dinner if served with lots of sides)

Crock Pot Chicken Wings Ingredients:
2 pounds of free range chicken wings
2 tsp of Simply Organic Grilling Seasons Chicken seasoning (or 1/2 tsp of garlic powder, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, 1/4 tsp sage, 1/4 tsp rosemary, 1/4 tsp thyme)

3 Easy Recipes For Best Wings Sauce

We made three different spicy buffalo wing sauces. If you just one to go with one, you will want to triple the recipe.  You can use these three Nashville Heat hot sauces or substitute your favorite hot sauces or even use your favorite BBQ sauce.  My sister’s favorite is Frank’s RedHot Sauce (for traditional buffalo wings) but you can pick whatever suits your taste. We like Crystal hot sauce too! Just mix these ingredients together in a small bowl and they will be ready to spoon over your crockpot wings.

Chicken Wings Sauce Ingredients:

Garlic Habanero-
2 tbsp Nashville Heat garlic habanero hot sauce
2 tsp butter, melted

Smoked Chipotle-
2 tbsp Nashville Heat sweet smoked chipotle
2 tsp butter, melted
(optional for those like smokey and sweet, mix 2 tsp of brown sugar into the hot melted butter)

Honey Sriracha-
1.5 tbsp The Chattanooga Butter Company Sriracha, Shallot, & Scallion Butter, melted
2 tbsp Williams Raw Honey
1 tbsp Nashville Heat habanero (OPTIONAL and only if you love heat, otherwise this is most mild of the hot wings sauces but it still has a little kick from the Sriracha butter. It was perfect for our kids who don’t like too much heat and I couldn’t resist the sweet and spicy combo either.)

Here is a quick video to see how it is done and the detailed recipe is below.

How To Cook Hot Wings In A Crock Pot:

This crock pot chicken wings recipe is so easy! You will hardly believe how easy it is but the hot wings in crock pot taste fantastic without minimal effort. I like a recipe without too much fuss.

The first step is to take the whole chicken wings and cut them up into the 3 chicken wing sections- the drumette, the flat, and the tip. We don’t use the wing tips in this hot wings recipe but you can save those for your slow cooker chicken stock recipe. Remember to wash your hands well and keep things sanitary when working with raw chicken.

Next up, just toss the wings with the herbs and spices and dump them in the slow cooker and set it on low for 4 hours.  Or you can cook for 2 hours on high. The cooking time and temperature just depends on when you want them to be ready!  If you are using frozen wings, it will be 3 hours on high.  

When you pull the lid off a few hours later, you will find that the fat has largely cooked right off. Then you are left with tender wings. The cooking liquid can be tossed out, saved for your homemade chicken broth, or add a little back to your sauces.

The internal temperature of safely cooked chicken is a minimum of 165 °F. If you’d like to use a meat thermometer to check them just stick it into the the thickest part of the meat and avoid the bone.

Mix up your simple wing hot sauces.

How Give Wings A Quick Broil

The wings are already cooked and you could just slather them in sauce. However, we like crispy skin so we add an extra step and give them a quick broil to crisp them. This does add to the cook time a little bit. I think it is worth it to get crispy chicken wings!

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Line the top of a baking sheet with aluminum foil to avoid a mess. You can also use it to create foil trays. This serves to divide your slow cooker chicken wings so you can keep different sauced wings separate.

Use tongs to lay the crock pot wings out onto the baking sheet with space between each one.

Then use a spoon to cover each wing in wing sauce.

Place baking pan in oven about 10 inches down from the heat source and bake for 5 minutes.

Pull out the baking pan and use tongs to flip over each wing.

Then use a spoon to cover the second side in sauce.

Place baking pan back in oven about 10 inches down from the heat source and bake for another 5 minutes.

Now your hot chicken wings will be nice and crisped up and totally flavorful and delicious!

You can pile them on a plate and serve with ranch dressing or blue cheese dressing for dipping. I also like to include carrot sticks and celery sticks for a crispy side that dips well too.

Printable Recipe Card For Crock Pot Wings

Which one of the hot wing sauce recipes catches your fancy?  Have you ever tried crock pot wings?  I hope you enjoy these crispy crock pot chicken wings as much as my family does!

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