Well! That can be a case when you over-ordered the food but failed to consume it all in one single sitting. Thus, you decided to store it to consume it for late-night cravings.
In this amazing article, we are going to discover some of the best recipes to restore the original flavor, aroma, and crunchiness of chicken wings.
No matter how good reheating techniques you apply, if you haven’t properly stored the chicken wings, you won’t yield the required result. Perhaps the bottom line is to store the chicken wings properly.
Table of Contents
How to Store the Chicken Wings Properly?
So to store chicken wings properly, you need to take care of few things, like:
Step 1: Rule of Thumb
Storing chicken wings in the right way keeps reheated chicken wings juicy and tender. It depends on how many days you intend to store the chicken wings. The rule of thumb is to use foil paper or plastic wrap to cover and wrap the chicken wings. Doing so helps a lot to keep wings juicy and yummy.
We know that the bacteria affect the cooked food easily. It’s much better to consume it fresh. However, one must not do over-eating. That’s why you should store it in the freezer if you are planning to not consume it in a day or two.
Though, the items kept in the freezer must also be stored in a sealed or airtight container. This reliably keeps bacteria away from food.
It’s always important to know for how long you will be storing the chicken wings.
| At Room Temperature | Inside the Refrigerator | At the Freezer |
| Remains edible for least duration (few hours, e.g., 1-2 depending on ambient temperature ) | Can help it pass 2-3 days | Can survive weeks. However, they taste best when fresh |
| Supports fast spreading of bacteria | Good for thawing | Requires sealed containers/ bags for better storage |
| If the room temperature is humid and warm, try to consume as early as possible | Also requires to be consumed within the time | Storing for more time may cause a slight change in taste and looks |
| Keeping things longer than their fresh time will start growing bacteria, which may also affect other food kept there |
Preparation Before Starting:
It’s good to have all things available before starting an attempt to reheat chicken wings. Try to agree upon the method you would be opting for. Then it would be best if you had all the required things like foil, oven, etc., whatever the technique demands. Frozen items require thaw.
That means if they were in the freezer, they need to be thawed in the refrigerator overnight. The refrigerated item can be left at room temperature for about 15 minutes. This helps them to get evenly reheated and restore their original crispiness.
Reheat Chicken Wings in the Microwave:
Wings are mostly used as appetizers. Reheating those means that one is craving for it a lot. This means that the reheating method should be great at saving time. Reheating wings in a microwave means you can save a lot of time and get a nice warm and okay meal. However, you have to be extra careful as microwaving it more can turn them dry.
- Saves time
- Easily available
- Easy to implement
- Doesn’t yields crispiness
Step By Step Guide:
Follow these steps for an amazing microwave experience:
Step 1: Thaw
It’s better to thaw the wings before directly putting them in the microwave. This helps the meat to decrease its temperature gradually. Doing so makes it easier for a microwave to yield the best results by evenly reheating wings from all sides.
Time required: 10-15 minutes
Step 2: Prepare
Get a microwave-friendly dish (ceramics or any available) and place your wings on them. Make sure they don’t overlap. Find a dish size that can hold all of the wings and can easily rotate inside the microwave.
Instead of directly placing the wings in the microwave, try putting a slightly wet paper towel above the chicken wings. Doing so prevents them from getting dry and keeps them moist.
Time required: 2 minutes
Step 3: Microwave
Now place the dish inside a microwave. Turn the timer to 1 minute and 30 seconds. After that, carefully see how much more they require. Accordingly, give them another round of 20 or 30 seconds based upon your microwave wattage.
Time required: 2-3 minutes
Step 4: Serve
Finally, your tasty and reheated chicken wings are ready to fulfill your hunger cravings in no time.
How to Reheat Chicken Wings In The Oven:
Perhaps the best way to reheat wings is reheating them in the oven. The oven yields a crispy wing outside and juicy inside. Below are some downsides of reheating wings in the oven, yet the results of reheating in the oven are remarkable and truly top of the line.
- Unmatchable taste and crispiness. Almost as good as first time
- Yummy, crisp and moist
- Takes more time
- Not recommended for very small quality
- It is not available for most people
Step By Step Guide:
Step 1: Get All Things
Get an oven dish, a few oven sheets, a little oil. The oven dish should be large enough for all the wings to sit inside.
Step 2: Preheat And Thaw
Now preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. This preheating helps a lot with achieving the goal of crispy reheated wings. The chicken wings should be kept in the refrigerator (overnight) if frozen before. Or they can be left at room temperature (covered) for 10-15 minutes.
Time required: 10-15 minutes
Step 3: Prepare
Place an oven sheet below the wings in oven-dish to avoid burning. Then place the chicken wings on the oven tray. Make sure they don’t overlap. Leave some space between the wings. If you have an oil spray, then do some spray on the wings. Else drizzle very little oil on wings.
Time required: 5 minutes
Step 4: Start Reheating In The Oven
Place the wings in the oven. Then turn on the oven for 5-6 mins initially. Then carefully turn the sides and give another round of 5-6 minutes.
Time required: 12-14 mintes
Step 5: Serve
Finally, your reheated wings will be ready. You can drizzle some amazing ketchup/sauces or even herbs on these wings for a fantastic experience.
Time required: 2 minutes
Crab legs are reheated in a similar manner.
How to Reheat Wings in the Air Fryer:
The air fryer is a great tool to get things ready without deep frying them. This saves a lot of time and is a super handy tool. It healthily cooks food, and thus oil doesn’t deposit too much on it. The reheated chicken wings in the air fryer are juicy, tender, and crispy, which is the reheating ultimate goal.
- Tasty and crispy wings
- Has very little oil
- Doesn’t requires turning sides, unlike the oven
- Easy and requires zero preparation
- Takes more time than a microwave
- Prepare a small quantity at a time
- It is not available for most people
- Requires tough cleaning on air fryer after reheating wings
Step By Step Guide:
Step 1: Thaw
Like in a microwave and oven, the wings need to be thawed in an air fryer too. Keep the wings at room temperature for 15 mins to allow a gradual decrease in temperature.
Time required: 10-15 minutes
Step 2: Put Them In The Air Fryer
Now place the chicken wings inside the air fryer. Make sure they don’t overlap. Instead, they should leave some space around them for steam to pass through. Now set the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This will take 10-11 minutes to prepare the wings.
Time required: 10-12 minutes
Slow cooking is very good to yield nice and crispy results. However, if you want to go faster, you can set the temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. But we prefer to keep it at 350 degrees as it prepares the best juicy and tender wings.
Step 3: Serve
Finally, the wings are ready to be served. And you saw yourself, how easy the method was. You can serve with sauces of your own choice.
Time required: 2 minutes
Reheating Chicken Wings on the Grill Pan:
The grill is a nice method and provides the wings with extra smoky and incredibly nice flavor. These methods need to be carefully followed as they can quickly burn the wings.
- Extra smoky flavor
- High Labor task
- Can make them burn fast
- Needs high attention
Step By Step Guide:
Step 1: Thaw
Before placing the wings on the grill pan, it’s important to bring them at room temperature.
Time required: 10-15 minutes
Step 2: Prepare
Wrap the wings in foil. Now place the grill pan on medium flame.
Time required: 5 minutes
Step 3: Grill
Place the wings on the less hot side for a few minutes with flame at low-medium. Before removing the wings, check if they get warm from inside. Then carefully remove the foil afterward, place the bare wings on the hotter side, and give a nice golden color.
Time required: 10-12 minutes
Keep flipping the sides until the smoky golden color gets on both sides.
Step 4: Serve
Finally, the grilled chicken wings are now reheated and ready to be served. Serve with available sauces.
Time required: 2 minutes
The Best Method of Reheating Chicken Wings:
The best method of reheating wings is by using the oven. Oven makes the best crispy, tender and moist meal. However, it surely has some downsides yet, and the result is an amazingly reheated wing.
Conclusion:
To conclude, in this article, we discussed how to reheat chicken wings to make them crispy outside and juicy inside. We discussed the methods of the oven, microwave, grill pan, and air fryer. Along with that, we saw how long you could store wings in different environments (room temp., freezer and refrigerator).
Overall all methods were good; however, to quickly recap, the microwave method saves a lot of time and yields a nice and warm wing.
The oven was the best method, as we already discussed above. The reason was that the wings were crispy and moist, unlike the microwave, which doesn’t make them that crisp. The oven requires a little preparation, and along with that, it is not easily available for most people. However, the best part is that it yields the best results.
An air fryer is also a nice tool for reheating wings as it makes them crispy outside and the best thing about the air fryer is that it requires no preparation. Plus, it also doesn’t require any turnover in halftime.
The grill can also be opted for if no other method is applicable. This one is rigorous in labor and requires constant concentration, yet it also makes the wings smoky and nicely warm inside.
