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I can never say no to chicken wings! They’re one of my favourite appetizers!
I also love my spicy food! In Indian cooking, we do have quite a few dishes that are quite spicy, so I grew up with it! However, today we’re going to take a trip to the Caribbean with these delicious Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings!
If you’re enjoying cooking with me, I’ve got two free guides to keep the fun going: Make Cooking Fun, my mindset reset for the kitchen, and the Live to Cook field guide — a month of cook-along challenges. Grab them both free on my free resources page, and come cook along with me on YouTube!
That being said, as part of one of the themes in Live to Cook, I wanted to try my hand at a new cuisine. Recently, I’ve seen plenty of Jamaican recipes by plenty of talented content creators on YouTube, and that inspired me to make some awesome Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings! Oven baked or air fried, I’ve got you covered with these absolutely delectable chicken wings! Fun fact: When I was eating these I couldn’t even tell the difference which were air fried and which were deep fried!
I guarantee you won’t get enough of these wings! I’ve made my version of a flavorful spicy and smoky Jerk marinade to give these chicken wings bursting with deliciousness! What I love about these chicken wings is the crispy exterior but how incredibly juicy and warm they are on the inside! I also love the stickiness of the chicken wings! I don’t know about you, but I find sticky wings are the most fun!
Since I had only made Jamaican jerk chicken once many moons ago, I thought a fantastic introduction to a new cuisine would be in the form of chicken wings! If you can relate, then you can’t say no to chicken wings either! I feel chicken wings are an awesome canvas to a variety of cuisines, and these Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings were so amazing that I’d totally love to have them again in a heartbeat! I’m sure they’ll be at the top of your appetizers menu too!
Make sure to watch the video so you get a visual representation of how to make these chicken wings! I’ll show you how to make the marinade and how to air fry and oven bake the wings! If you’re not already, be sure to subscribe to me on YouTube so you always know when the corresponding video to all of my recipes go live! I love filming the recipes since I find watching the demonstration is a nice complement to the written recipe and you’re set up for success! Let’s get cooking!
What is Jerk seasoning?▼
Jerk Seasoning refers to a Jamaican spice blend of sweet and warm spices such as cinnamon, allspice, thyme and nutmeg. Those are the core ingredients, and then variations of Jerk seasonings include different chilies, herbs, and other hot spices. Jerk seasoning can either be a paste or a dry rub. In this recipe, we’ll be making a paste. Jerk seasoning tends to be spicy and smoky, but when you make your own seasoning you can adjust the amount of heat based on your preference. You may be asking if my version of Jerk marinade will be spicy. Yes, there’ll be some heat, but as I said, you can customize the amount of heat to your liking! I found this quite spicy but not unbearable!
How Long should I marinate the chicken wings?▼
The answer to this is really depends on your situation and hunger. No one can stop you from cooking these right away. The question would remain with the amount of flavour the wings have been able to absorb. As a rule of thumb, the longer these wings marinate, the more tender and flavourful the wings will be.
I would advise marinate for at least 1-2 hours and preferably overnight.
Ingredients for Jamaican Chicken Wings
Let’s review what we’ll need for our jerk marinade to make our ultimate Air Fryer Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings!
Remember, the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD for all ingredient quantities and step by step instructions. You can save the recipe for later, and it’s so easy to scale the ingredient quantities based on how many portions of chicken wings you want to make, so you can make these just for a snack or for a fantastic game-day appetizer!
- Chicken wings
- Onion: White or yellow onion, diced.
- Peppers: Look for Scotch bonnet peppers. Ensure to de-seed them and de-vein them.
- Green onions: Sliced.
- Salt
- Pepper
- Allspice
- Thyme
- Dried parsley
- Cinnamon
- Cumin
- Garlic powder
- Paprika
- Nutmeg: Freshly grated whole nutmeg.
- Vegetable oil
- Soy sauce
- Brown sugar
How to Make Air Fryer Jerk Chicken Wings
You’ll love how easy it is to make these Air Fryer Jerk Chicken Wings! Let’s get to the instructions!
For the Marinade
- In a food processor, add the onions, green onions, scotch bonnet peppers and all the dried ingredients, followed by the wet ingredients for the Jerk marinade. Puree until marinade is smooth.
- Place the wings on a cutting board/or bowl and pat it dry using a kitchen towel.
- Pour the marinade over the wings and coat well to combine. Make sure to coat each side of the chicken.
- Marinate for at least 2 hours or preferably overnight.
To Make the Chicken Wings (Air Fried)
- Place the wings on a cutting board/or bowl and pat it dry using a kitchen towel.
- Pour the marinade over the wings and coat well to combine. Make sure to coat each side of the chicken.
- Set the air fryer temperature to 350 F. Add the wings in your basket for 13 minutes. Reserve any leftover marinade.
- Baste with any leftover marinade, flip the wings and baste the other side as well. Cook for another 7-13 minutes at 350 F, or until the wings are cooked and have a charred exterior.
- Once wings are ready, serve right away with lime, your favourite dip and party snacks!
How Do I Know the Wings Are Ready?▼
The wings are ready when they have a crisp golden brown crust on the outside. I’m using the Ninja Foodi 6-in-1 2-Basket Air Fryer, so I found that the 26 minutes or so works perfectly well for me. However, based on your air fryer, the cooking times may be different. If you really want to be sure that they are cooked, they should reach an internal temperature of 165 F.
How to Reheat Chicken Wings?▼
To be honest with you I wouldn’t want to be in a situation where I’m going to need to reheat chicken wings. I’ve never heard of chicken wings being leftover! Whenever I make chicken wings, they disappear in a flash! I’d recommend that you plan accordingly and make the amount of wings you and your guests will eat. Plus, I don’t know who actually stops eating chicken wings! Never heard of there being leftovers to be honest with you!
However, if you’re in a pickle with leftovers or they’re ready early before serving then I totally understand. If you must reheat your Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings, add the wings to the air fryer basket and heat at 350F for 5-10 minutes or until warmed through.
What to Serve with Jerk Chicken Wings
As you’ll see in the picture and in the video, I’ll be serving my Jerk Chicken Wings with a sour cream and green onion dip. Yeah, kind of like the famous chip flavour! It’s so good!
Since I was recording this recipe, the chicken wings were my main, and I’ve been on a huge appetizers for dinner theme as you may have seen from my Instagram stories! By the way, if you’re not following me on Instagram, then you definitely should to see lots of behind the scene clips of these recipes and to follow along with my other recipe testing and kitchen experiments! I actually made sausage rolls with my Juicy Beef Meatballs (made with a combination of beef and veal in this case!) to munch on as the wings were cooking! So I didn’t really have a meal. However, these Air Fried Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings would seriously be the ultimate appetizer for any meal, or one of many appetizers if you’re like me and having a meal full of appetizers!
You could pair your Jamaican Chicken Wings with:
- Loaded Cheese & Bacon Air Fryer Fries
- Epic Canadian Poutine
- Juicy California Grilled Chicken Burger
- Mozzarella Sticks
- Homemade Panko Chicken Nuggets
Other great ways to serve jerk chicken include a potato salad, sweet potatoes, plantains, grilled pineapple, or rice and beans!
I DON’T HAVE an AIR FRYER!
No worries! I’ve got you covered for how to bake your Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings in the oven! Here’s how to do it!
- Preheat the oven to 400 F. Prepare a baking sheet with a parchment paper and a wire rack.
- Lay out the wings onto the prepared baking sheet. Reserve any leftover marinade.
- Transfer the wings into the middle rack for the oven. Turn them once after 15 minutes and basting with any extra marinade (at least once). Repeat this at least 2 more times for a total of 50-60 minutes, or until the wings are cooked and have a charred exterior.
- Once wings are ready, serve right away with lime, your favourite dip and party snacks!
ARE AIR FRYER Jerk CHICKEN WINGS HEALTHY?▼
I feel this question is always asked when it comes to an air fryer recipe. I wouldn’t consider chicken wings healthy to begin with since we’ve got meat with the skin on and not much nutrition coming from the chicken wings. However, I wouldn’t consider them as “unhealthy” as they could be if you were to deep fry them!
We’re only using a bit of vegetable oil for our jerk marinade, and the oil ends there. I don’t see anything inherently “unhealthy” about this recipe, depending on how you serve them! You could make these Air Fried Jerk Chicken Wings part of a balanced meal by serving with some complex carbohydrates such as sweet potato wedges or brown rice along with a vegetable salad to add more body and fill you up! Anything in moderation is all right, and air frying your chicken wings omits all the added vegetable oil used in frying while still giving you tender, juicy and crispy chicken!
Tips & Tricks for Delicious Jerk Chicken Wings
- Pat the wings dry for any excess moisture before cooking.
- Flip the wings after 13 minutes to ensure both sides get evenly coloured.
- Make sure to reserve any excess marinade for basting, this will help keep the wings moist.
- Make sure not to stack the wings on top of each other. If you don’t have enough space in your basket or baking sheet (for oven baked method) then I recommend you make your wings in two batches. It’ll be worth it!
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