Brown Sugar BBQ Wings

BBQ chicken wings are easy to make at home. With our method, you can skip the oil and fryer and make amazing wings tossed in our delicious homemade sauce. These barbecue wings are sweet, smoky, and just a little sticky!

Barbecue Baked Chicken Wings

We love chicken wings, but the last thing we want to do at home is use a deep fryer. That’s why we’re such big fans of baking wings at home. For this BBQ wings recipe, we use the same method as our crispy baked hot wings, but instead of tossing the baked wings with buffalo sauce, we use our easy homemade BBQ sauce.

Our BBQ chicken wings recipe guarantees crispy and delicious wings. They are also perfect for serving a crowd. This simple recipe lets you make big batches of wings with little work from you.

BBQ Chicken Wings with homemade BBQ sauce

How to make BBQ wings

Making BBQ wings at home is so easy. Below, we share how we make them, how long it takes to bake wings so they are crispy, and a quick and easy barbecue sauce to coat them in. There are four things to keep in mind for making the best wings:

  1. It’s up to you whether you separate the chicken wings. Some grocery stores sell them already separated into the drumstick and wingette. If the wings you buy are not, you can do it yourself. Or leave them unseparated like we do when grilling wings. The recipe will work both ways. Here’s our tutorial for how to cut a chicken wing if you want to see how to do it.
  2. Instead of frying them, bake the chicken wings on a wire rack inside a rimmed baking sheet, tossed in some homemade BBQ sauce. By cooking the chicken wings on a wire rack, fat drips away from them while they bake, helping to make them extra crispy.
  3. Bake the chicken wings at a high oven temperature — we like 400ºF. The wings bake for 35 to 45 minutes. (You can bake wings at an even higher temperature, but depending on your oven, you might find the oven smokes a little.)
  4. Toss the baked wings with more BBQ sauce. Then, serve them with your favorite dipping sauce. We like homemade ranch or blue cheese dressing.
How to Bake Chicken Wings

Quick and easy BBQ sauce for wings

For these wings, we use a BBQ sauce similar to our popular oven-baked ribs. You will need ketchup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, Sriracha, soy sauce, and cumin.

This is a quick sauce, so all you need to do before tossing with the wings is stir the sauce ingredients together and heat over medium until the sugar dissolves. For another favorite homemade BBQ sauce, see our sweet and tangy bbq sauce.

Bake the chicken wings with roughly half of the sauce and then save the rest to toss or dip the baked wings in later. Easy!

More chicken wing recipes

We love chicken wings around here and have shared a few recipes. Here are our classic Buffalo hot wings, or for something different, take a look at our sweet chili wings, which use Thai chili sauce.

We’ve shared a few grilled wings: our Pho-inspired and lemon parmesan grilled wings. And if you love hot wings but want something meatless, try our buffalo-baked cauliflower wings!

Brown Sugar BBQ Wings

  • PREP
  • COOK
  • TOTAL

Sweet, smokey, and just a little spicy, the sauce for these baked BBQ chicken wings comes together in 5 minutes and is fantastic. If you have a favorite store-bought BBQ sauce you love, use it instead.

Makes approximately 5 servings

You Will Need

3 pounds chicken wings, separated at joints, tips discarded

1 cup ketchup, try homemade ketchup

1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Sriracha chili sauce

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Directions

    1Heat oven to 400°F (204°C). Set a wire rack inside a large-rimmed baking sheet. Spray rack with nonstick cooking spray.

    2Make BBQ sauce: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir together the ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, Sriracha, cumin, and soy sauce. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves. Taste and adjust with additional soy sauce or sugar.

    3Divide the sauce in half, saving half for serving the wings.

    4Toss the chicken wings with the remaining half of BBQ sauce, and then place onto the prepared baking sheet.

    5Bake the chicken wings, turning once during cooking, until an internal thermometer registers 165°F, 35 to 45 minutes.

    6Serve the baked wings with the sauce you set aside earlier, either on the side or tossed with the chicken.

Adam and Joanne's Tips

  • No wire rack: If you do not have a wire rack that will fit inside a baking sheet, you can still make wings. Arrange them on the baking sheet, without the rack and rotate a few times during baking.
  • BBQ sauce: You will need 1 ¼ cups barbecue sauce, homemade or store-bought.
  • Nutrition facts: We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values. 1 pound of wings will be 8 to 12 wings, depending on size.
Nutrition Per Serving Calories 571 / Total Fat 24g / Saturated Fat 6.4g / Cholesterol 239.2mg / Sodium 880.4mg / Carbohydrate 38.7g / Dietary Fiber 0.1g / Total Sugars 34.6g / Protein 29g
AUTHOR:  Adam and Joanne Gallagher
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37 comments… Leave a Review
  • Isabella August 7, 2021, 3:28 pm

    Hi this recipe was great! Everybody loved it!! I will definitely be trying out some of your other recipes!

    Reply
  • Jeanie April 22, 2020, 4:31 am

    This is the very first recipe I tried, cause it’s the easiest one haha 😀 My son loves it soooo much. Gives me confidence in cooking.. Thank you, Joanne and Adam, can’t wait to try your other recipes.

    Reply
  • Edward Love March 22, 2020, 3:06 am

    Doing the ribs once again. Over the years my family truly loves your recipe. We also really love your sweet and spicy chicken sauce used on the finished ribs. Thanks again. Best wishes,Ed

    Reply
  • Damon L. Gary February 15, 2020, 9:34 pm

    Thank you.

    Reply
  • Franzi February 2, 2020, 9:28 pm

    My husband requests these for Superbowl every year and they are always amazing. The sauce is to die for!

    Reply
  • Tami Taylor Hill January 27, 2020, 3:19 pm

    I am going to save this recipe right now, even though this recipe is around 6 years old!

    Reply
  • Rodrigo June 2, 2017, 5:24 pm

    Just did it here, tasted super good. My girlfriend loved the sauce and matched good with rice and salad. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Berta December 3, 2020, 3:04 pm

      My son loves chicken wings and I am so excited to try this recipe. Took the time to browse through several of your other recipes and I’m really excited about your site. I plan on tagging you as a favorite and I plan on visiting it often. Thank you so much.

      Reply
  • Anita December 19, 2016, 7:35 am

    Do I have to follow your ketchup recipe? *If I don’t though, what brand/kind of Ketchup should I use to substitute? Going to make them tomorrow!

    Reply
    • Joanne December 23, 2016, 7:02 pm

      Your favorite store-bought ketchup will be fine.

      Reply
  • Daniella November 5, 2015, 11:55 am

    This recipe sounds great, but I would rather use boneless skinless breast meat, how will that effect the cooking time?

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Joanne November 7, 2015, 2:39 pm

      Hi Daniella, I would expect a 25 to 30 minute cooking time. You might want to reduce the oven temperature, though. The oven is set high in this recipe so the skin becomes crisp. Since you would be using skinless chicken, you should be fine with a temperature closer to 375º F – Joanne

      Reply
  • Damali May 25, 2015, 10:13 pm

    My entire family (who can be as picky as Chopped judges) loved, loved, loved this recipe! I also put the sauce on salmon and it was amazing! Thank you!

    Reply
  • Deborah December 5, 2014, 6:40 am

    These are THE BEST most delicious wings I have ever had in my whole life!! Everybody loves them! Finger-lickin’, lip-smackin’ good- literally! My in-laws can’t get enough of them.

    Thank you!

    Reply

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