Vent: My sister said air fryer chicken wings are always better with a sauce added after cooking

I was at a family cookout in Tampa last weekend, and my sister was making wings in her air fryer. I told her my method is to toss them in sauce before they go in, so the flavor gets cooked right into the skin. She looked at me and said, 'You're losing all the crispness. The sauce just steams them and makes them soggy. You should only sauce them after, when they're hot out of the basket.' I've been doing it my way for two years, convinced it was the right call. But I tried her way with a batch of plain wings, then tossed them in Buffalo sauce after, and she was totally right. The skin was so much crunchier, and the sauce clung perfectly. I feel like I've wasted a lot of good chicken wings. Has anyone else switched from a 'sauce before' to a 'sauce after' person, or am I the last one to figure this out?

2 comments

2 Comments

price.alice15d ago

Yeah, the "sauce just steams them" line hit me hard... I did the same thing for like a year, acting like I had some secret chef knowledge. My poor, soggy wings. I guess I was so focused on getting flavor in there that I missed the whole point of the air fryer.

noahs8215d ago

That's such a common trap to fall into. You get excited about the sauce and forget the machine needs to do its crispy magic first. At least we both learned the hard way, right?