Sous Vide Chicken Wings Recipe with Honey Garlic Sauce (2024)

This Sous Vide Honey Garlic Chicken Wings recipe makes a delicious dinner the entire family will enjoy or an easy appetizer for your next party!

Have you ever tried cooking chicken wings?It can be a little tricky to get them cooked all the way through without burning the outside. When I was a kid my mom used to boil the chicken wings to cook them through. Then she would coat the cooked wings with sauce and either bake them to give them a crisp coat or give them to my dad to barbecue. Her method of boiling the chicken wings was effective and yielded tender chicken without burning the wings, but boy did it stink!

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom’s wings, I just don’t want to smell boiling chicken. Ever. So I decided to modify the recipe and cook the chicken wings using the sous vide method, so all the smells (and all the flavor) were locked in a FoodSaver Sous-vide Vacuum Seal Bags while cooking. The interesting thing is my mom also used a FoodSaver to store food when I was a child, so instead of looking at this as a rejection of her chicken boiling, I am looking at this as me combining two of her brilliant ideas into one new recipe.

What is Sous Vide?

Sous vide means under vacuum. It is a method ofcookingwhere food is sealed in a plastic bag, or for better results a FoodSaver Sous-Vide Bag, and then placed in a water bath or large pot of water. The food is cooked at a much lower than normal temperature for a longerperiod of time. The temperature is accurately regulated with a Sous Vide Stick. This method is used to cook the food evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside. It can also help to retain moisture.

How to Cook Sous Vide Chicken Wings

What equipment do you need for sous vide cooking?

Basically, you need a large container of water, a heating method that keeps the water at a consistenttemperature, and airtight bags to hold the food. There are a variety of ways to cook chicken wings using the sous vide method. Instead of using a sous vide water bath, I use one of my large cooking pots filled with water and a sous vide immersion circulator. This means I don’t have to find a place to store a large water bath, just the small immersion stick.

What type of bag do you use for sous vide cooking?

First, make sure that the bags you use are BPA-free and safe for sous-vide cooking. While you can use certain zip-seal bags and squeeze out the air, you will get much better results usingSous-Vide Bags with a FoodSaver Vacuum Sealing System (like theFoodSaver FM2000 Vacuum Sealing Systemthat I used). The Sous-Vide Bagsare completely airtight once sealed, so you don’t have to clip the bags to the side of the pot to prevent them from getting water inside. Since the air is removed, they won’t float during the sous-vide processwhich delivers more uniform cooking results. And they are sturdy, so you don’t have to worry about them ripping at any point in the sous vide process.

You can purchase FoodSaver Sous-vide Vacuum Seal Bags, as well as the FoodSaver FM2000 Vacuum Sealing System, in-store or online at Target.

What temperature for Sous Vide Chicken Wings?

You will see different sous vide temperature recommendations and cooking times for chicken wings. The thing to remember is the internal temperature of the meat can never reach a higher temperature than the water around it. I ultimately want to cook the chicken to an internal temperature of 165° F, so I heat my water to 170° F. A sous-vide immersion circulator keeps the water moving through its heating mechanism to keep the water at a consistent temperature. Preheat your water to the desired temperature before inserting the bag of wings.

How long do you cook Sous Vide Chicken Wings?

This is a forgiving cooking method, so I sous vide chicken wings for a minimum of 2 hours, but don’t worry if you get busy and forget to pull them out right away because you can leave the chicken wings in the water for 2 – 4 hours.

What do you do with the chicken wings after you pull the bag out of the water?

This is my favorite part of sous vide cooking because you have so many options!

• Remove the wings from the bag and finish them by cooking them for a short time in the oven, broiler, fryer, or on the grill to add a crispiness to the skin. This only takes 2 – 10 minutes depending on the method you choose.
• If you used the sous vide cooking method ahead of time, you can allow the wings to cool and store them while still sealed in the sous vide bag in your refrigerator. Then pull them out shortly before you wish to serve them and finish the wings with your method of choice. This is a great make-ahead party recipe!
• If you batch cooked a lot of sous vide chicken wings, you have the option of allowing them to cool and then freezing some or all of the wings in the sous vide bags. Then you can pull them out of the freezer, thaw the bag of wings in a bowl of water or the microwave, and quickly finish them for a quick appetizer or an easy dinner. Frozen Sous Vide Chicken Wings allows you to quickly feed unexpected guests.

How to Season Sous Vide Chicken Wings?

When you season your wings before putting them in a sous vide bag and when you finish them, you can choose from your favorite chicken seasonings and sauces. My only recommendation is to either use a dry rub or if you use liquid keep it to 2 tablespoons or less. None of the liquid will cook off as it is sealed in a sous vide bag, so a little goes a long way.

Honey Garlic Chicken Wings are a family favorite, so I am sharing my Sous Vide Honey Garlic Chicken Recipe below. Don’t be put off by all the steps. I chose to break the directions up into smaller steps to make it easier to follow rather than dig through a paragraph to figure out what to do.

Sous Vide Honey Garlic Chicken Wings Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds chicken wings
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make this gluten-free)
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Preheat a large pot filled with water witha sous vide immersion circulator to 170° F.
2. Add the honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder, onion powder, and ground ginger to a small bowl. Stir to combine.
3. Divide the chicken wings between 2 – 3 Sous-Vide Bags ensuring that you have at least 4 inches above the wings.
4. Add 2 tablespoons of the honey garlic sauce to each of the bags. Move the wings around a bit to coat them with the sauce.
5. Vacuum and seal each bag following the directions for your Foodsaver.
6. Place the bag(s) in the water and set the timer for 2 hours.
7. About 5 minutes before the wings are finished, heat the oven to 450° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil.
8. When the timer goes off, remove the bag(s) from the water bath. Remove the wings from the bag and place them on theprepared baking sheet.
9. Place the chicken wings in the oven and cook until the chicken skin is browned and slightly crispy; about 6 – 8 minutes.
10. While the wings are in the oven, add the remaining honey garlic sauce to a saucepan. Cook over a medium-high heat until it reaches a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until the sauce thickens to a syrupy texture, approximately 4-5 minutes.
11. Once the chicken skin is browned, remove it from the oven, spoon the sauce over the wings, flip the wings over and spoon sauce over the other side.
12. Place in the oven for 2 more minutes. Remove the wings from the oven sprinkle them with sesame seeds.

My youngest son calls this recipe Sticky Wings because the wings are definitely sticky which is hard to avoid when eating wings with your fingers! While I originally served Honey Garlic Chicken Wings as an appetizer at parties, my kids love it so much that I make it for dinner and serve it over Cauliflower Fried Rice.

Printable Recipe for Sous Vide Honey Garlic Chicken Wings

More Appetizer Recipes

Sweet and Spicy Chicken Wings

Baked Buffalo Chicken Dip

Jalapeno Popper Dip Recipe

Layered Hot Pizza Dip

Spinach Artichoke Dip Recipe

Puff Pastry Pizza Wheels

This Sous Vide Honey Garlic Chicken Wings recipe was originally created as part of a sponsored by Everywhere Agency on behalf of FoodSaver®; however, the original recipe and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. It was originally published on July 10, 2018, but was updated on January 16, 2020.