The best frozen chicken wings should pass for restaurant-quality chicken wings without any work on your part. Let’s be real: You’re not going to season and deep-fry fresh chicken wings for your game day party. You’re going to get a big, giant bag of frozen chicken wings and pour them into the air fryer or onto a baking sheet. But you still want your guests to think you’ve got a mini Buffalo Wild Wings in your kitchen.
The best chicken wings can be defined by two things: Crispy skin and juicy meat. So that’s what we looked for when we cooked up a slew of the top frozen chicken wing brands. If we bit into a wing and the skin went “squish,” we tossed it out of the running. We also looked for good quality meat—something that really tasted like chicken. We also looked for flavor, whether that was from a tangy Buffalo sauce, sweet honey BBQ, or just some salt and pepper. Flavor has to show up to get a high score. Also, ideally, the best frozen chicken wing should cook up to look and taste like it’s been in the deep fryer. Seems impossible, right? Well, some of these brands actually got pretty darn close.
For our multiple frozen chicken wing taste tests, we used either an oven or a toaster oven to prep our wings. (It’s the best way to cook frozen chicken wings, according to our own experimentation.) But you can use an air fryer and get different results.
Our most recent frozen wing taste test resulted in two new additions to the list—both dry rub frozen wings. But nothing can touch our number one pick for the best frozen wings. Read on for the full ranking and find the best frozen bone in wings for your tastes. (And if you’re looking for the best frozen boneless wings, we ranked those, too.)
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- Kroger Honey Flavored BBQ
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Look, these aren’t the best frozen chicken wings for a party. They’re not super crispy and they don’t have a fried texture. But I still think they deserve a spot on this list as the best frozen wings to buy for an easy weeknight dinner. These Kroger brand frozen wings come out of the oven tasting like homemade BBQ chicken. The sauce is mellow and sweet and very honey-forward. It’s buttery and rich and really comforting. And the chicken is good quality chicken, too. That’s not always a given with frozen wings. Cook up a batch of these, make some boxed rice pilaf, steam some broccoli, and you’ve got yourself a quick, wholesome meal. — Justine sterling
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Kirkwood Buffalo Style Chicken Wings
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“The meat tastes like it was marinated in garlic, almost like it’s brined,” remarked Sporked editor-in-chief Justine Sterling. Costco’s Kirkwood frozen chicken wings are curious. The flavor is great, it contains the correct amount of sharp heat you come to expect out of Buffalo sauce, but the texture is a little peculiar. Judging by our experience, it’s best to jack up the heat or put them under the broiler at the end of the cooking process for a minute or two to get them nice and crispy. These aren’t the absolute best frozen Buffalo wings we tasted, but the flavor is hard to beat. And, since they’re from Costco, you get a lot of them for not that much money. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Tyson Any’Tizers Buffalo Wings
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Tyson’s Any’Tizers Buffalo Wings may have a cringey name, but they’re some of the best frozen Buffalo wings you can buy if you’re looking for seriously big, meaty Buffalo wings that don’t pack too much heat. The meat is really good. It’s gorgeously white and flavorful. And they crisp up in the oven, too. Our only quibble is that the Buffalo sauce flavor is fairly mild. But some people don’t want to be walloped in the face with a ton of Buffalo tang. If you’re cooking for a crowd that includes some folks who fear too much flavor, cook up a batch of these and serve extra Buffalo sauce on the side. (Want a Buffalo sauce recommendation? We’ve got you covered with the best Buffalo sauce.) And skip the blue cheese dressing (it’ll overpower the flavor) and pair these with some tangy, herb-speckled ranch (perhaps one of our picks for the best ranch) instead. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Kroger Garlic Parmesan Flavored
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These garlic parm wings from Kroger don’t taste like the garlic parm wings you get at Buffalo Wild Wings. They’re not flavor blasted. Instead, they taste like actual garlic and just a sprinkling of parmesan. The skin gets crispy in the oven and the chicken tastes great. These frozen chicken wings taste like a human person made them, rather than a robot. Sporked writer Ariana Losch thought the flavor was a bit too subtle for her taste, so be prepared to add a few extra shakes of parmesan and garlic powder if you really want to up the flavor. But if you’re into a naturally flavored wing, these are the best frozen chicken wings for you. — Justine Sterling
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Tyson Buffalo Style Hot Wings
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loud Buffalo flavor that we enjoy. The tangy heat provides a bit more spiciness than the other wings on this list of the best frozen chicken wings, making them all the more delectable. The wing meat is no joke, either. These aren’t dry and thin; Tyson’s Buffalo Style Hot Wings feature big, honkin’ hunks of juicy wing meat. Meaty hot wings are a no-brainer to pair with a good blue cheese dressing, just like the good Lord intended. The skin on each wing is nice and craggy, too, with an even coating around every morsel of chicken—perfect for picking up those little hunks of blue cheese in the dip. If you want the real sports bar experience, these are the best frozen Buffalo wings. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Sam’s Club
- Bettergoods Brown Sugar BBQ Dry Rub
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The best dry rub frozen chicken wings are from Hooters (more on those later). But sadly, they’re only available at Publix grocery stores. Luckily, if you don’t live near a Publix, you can still get some great dry rub frozen wings. Because chances are you live within driving distance of a Walmart. And Walmart’s new Bettergoods brand makes these sweet-and-savory dry rub frozen chicken wings. They get so crisp-skinned in the oven or air fryer. The meat is tender and juicy and fatty (in a good way). And the rub tastes like BBQ chip seasoning. They’re no Hooters wings, but they’re much easier to find and still some of the best frozen wings if you’re looking for the best frozen chicken wings that are still packed with flavor even though they aren’t covered in sauce. — Justine Sterling
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Trader Joe’s Hot & Spicy Wings
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“If I saw these at a Super Bowl party I’d be like, this party ‘bout to pop off,” Sporked’s Jordan Myrick said while eying these glorious wings. Trader Joe’s Hot & Spicy frozen wings are indeed a pleasure to behold. They glisten with lacquered sauce. If we judged on looks alone, these might be the best frozen hot wings. But they just didn’t have the crisp skin or ka-pow of flavor we were looking for to earn them the top spot. That said, the meat itself is really good. Out of all the frozen wings we tasted, these tasted the most like fresh-not-frozen chicken. If you’re a regular TJ’s shopper, pick up a bagful of these on your next stroll down the freezer aisle. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett
- Foster Farms Take Out Crispy Classic Buffalo Wings
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These frozen wings come with Buffalo sauce, but you might not even need it. Foster Farms wings are perfect naked and plain; they are salty, meaty, and moist all by themselves. Jordan enjoyed these so much they said, “I kind of forgot I was on camera for a minute,” as they got lost in the taste. (Want to see them and the rest of us Sporked folks taste test in action? Check out full-length, unedited taste test videos on YouTube, or quick reviews on TikTok or Instagram.) Well-seasoned food wins out every time, and these Foster Farms wings score high on our list of the best frozen wings to buy because of it. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- TGIFridays Buffalo Style Wings
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These bone-in Buffalo wings can be pretty tough to find, but when you see them at a store, get a tattoo of the exact location so that you never forget. They are the best frozen Buffalo wings. These wings are perfectly crispy—astonishingly so. Even when we cooked them in an oven, they achieved an incredible crunch. The only knock on these wings is that there’s not a whole lot of Buffalo sauce flavor. What sauce it does have permeates the chicken, though. “The sauce feels like it’s baked into the wing,” Justine said glowingly. That said, you might need to apply your own Frank’s Red Hot if you want some extra heat. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Hooters Texas Style Smoked Wings
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Going to Hooters for wings is like reading Playboy for the articles, in that Playboy did, at one point, publish extremely good articles by writers like Norman Mailer, Ray Bradbury, and Margaret Atwood, and Hooters still makes extremely good wings. At least, they do if they’re anything like the brand’s frozen wings, which are excellent. We’re particularly fond of the dry rub Texas-style wings. The meat is juicy and seasoned. The skin gets super crispy. And the BBQ seasoning is better than the BBQ seasoning on the aforementioned Bettergoods wings because it adds a smokey flavor to the blend of sweet and savory seasonings. If you live near a Publix (the only store that currently sells Hooters frozen wings) then you need to try these ASAP. — Justine Sterling
Credit: Liv Averett / Publix
- Foster Farms Hot & Spicy
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These wings take the title of not only the best frozen hot wings but the best frozen chicken wings, period, due to their even balance of crispy texture, tender meat, and amazing flavor. It should also be said that these were the only wings to not stick to the baking sheet. They were adequately crispy and evenly coated with sauce. That sauce, albeit not a traditional, buttery, restaurant-style Buffalo sauce, is tangy and hot just like we want it. Foster Farms Hot & Spicy wings uses aged cayenne peppers and a bit of vinegar to achieve that classically spicy, zesty flavor. This is a quality wing that scores high marks in both texture and flavor. For that reason, it alone sits in the top spot. — Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
Best Honey BBQ
Best Buffalo Wings in Bulk
Best Mild Buffalo
Best Garlic Parm
Best with Blue Cheese
Best Dry Rub (Runner-Up)
Best Chicken Quality
Best Plain
Best Buffalo Wings
Best Dry Rub
Best of the Best
Other frozen chicken wings we tried: Great Value Breaded Boneless Buffalo Style Chicken Wyngz, Foster Farms Take Out Sweet Chipotle BBQ, Foster Farms Boneless Wyngz Buffalo, Foster Farms Take Out Crispy Classic Buffalo Wings, Wingaza Buffalo Style Wings, Great Value Chicken Wings with Garlic Butter, Good & Gather Buffalo-Style, Great Value Honey BBQ, Simmons Pecan Smoked, Tyson Restaurant Style Caribbean Style, Bettergoods Garlic Butter Dry Rub, Perdue Air Fryer Ready Hot n Spicy
Two things!
1. The Buffalo wings at rank 10 are Kirkwood brand from Aldi. Not Costco. Costco is Kirkland brand
2. Is Danny back? I enjoyed his content quite a bit and it would be great if he’s back.
reviews from walmart say foster farms hot & spicy the best of the best are horrible. Urm! who to trust?
How can you say Tyson Wings of any flavor are good? They are all fat and skin. Very little meat. By the time you remove all the fat on them you’ve already removed the seasoning. They are one of worst brand I’ve ever tried
Regarding the Kirkwood buffalo wings, they are from ALDI, not Costco!
TJ Friday and Tyson boop, y’all gotta try Farm Rich BBQ😎
When I saw the topic I thought “Oh good. I’m going to find out the best WINGS I can apply my favorite sauces to”. But, instead, you rate the sauced wings too, eliminating most of them for me.
Hahaha
surprise, y’all! it’s all Tyson!