Air Fried Nandos Chicken Wings Recipe

Name: Air Fried Nandos Chicken Wings Recipe
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 12 wings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil; 12 chicken wings; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp fresh cracked pepper; 4 tbsp nandos sauce; 2 tbsp butter

My Air Fried Nandos Chicken Wings Recipe is a spicy and succulent family favorite and keto compliant! This recipe is super simple – just chicken, a bit of butter, and sauce. It’s really all about the method you’re going to use to get perfect crispy, crunchy chicken wings and how to best toss them in sauce so they stay crunchy but are packed with tons of flavor!

It couldn’t be any easier than this simple method for how to air fry chicken wings – just season, place in the fryer basket, flip the wings, and then toss in sauce! You don’t have to worry about wings being cooked through – this method is SO easy in an air fryer.

chicken wings in sauce on a plate with chopped scallions

Keto air fried Nandos chicken wings served with ranch dip on a white plate.

A person is air frying Nandos wings, dipping them into a sauce.

At Ajpal, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. My goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.

How to Make Crispy Air Fried Chicken Wings Tossed in Nando’s Sauce

I love Nando’s – it’s no secret. Unfortunately, I live hundreds of miles from the closest Nando’s to me (come to Colorado with your delicious chicken, please, friends!) – but thankfully, Nando’s sauces are sold in stores pretty much everywhere, and widely available online. What makes this sauce so addictive? It’s spicy (or mild, but I love heat), with lots of onion, lemon, paprika, and lemon. They have lots of flavors – I love the garlic parmesan in my Lemon Garlic Parmesan Baked Chicken Wings Recipe – but the garlic or hot are my absolute favorites.

Air Fry Chicken Wings Nando Style Ingredients

To make this recipe, you will need:

Extra virgin olive oil – just a tiny bit of oil helps salt and pepper stick to wings and helps wings crisp in air fryer to a crunchy, perfect texture that tastes like deep fried. Just a tiny bit does the trick!
Chicken wings – you can use whole wing pieces, but I prefer to cut my wings apart for the best texture, and so they are easier to eat. You can buy wing pieces already cut apart – but they tend to be more expensive. To separate wings into pieces, use a sharp knife and cut at the joint.
Salt – salt helps pull moisture from chicken skin and re-inject back into chicken meat, so it flavors the chicken, allows chicken to crisp, and keeps chicken from drying out!
Fresh cracked pepper – a bit of fresh cracked black pepper has an earthy, spicy heat that balances the paprika, onion, and citrus flavor of nandos sauce.
Nandos sauce – Nando’s sauce comes in a variety of flavors – but is based off Piri-Piri ingredients and known for a tangy, spicy, earthy and addictive mix of garlic, onion, paprika, and citrus.
Butter – a bit of butter thins the sauce to make it easier to toss and stick to wings, and adds a bit of a rich fat balance to the spicy sauce.

Steps to Make Nando Air Fryer Chicken Wings

Once you’ve gathered your ingredients, we will use the following method:

Prep. In a bowl or plastic bag, toss wings in olive oil. This wont coat wings much, it is just a little oil to help crisp the wings more. Generously salt and pepper wings.
Air fry. Place wings in air fryer basket so they aren’t crowding each other. Fry in air fryer for 25 minutes at 375 degrees, pulling out basket to quickly shake wings to rotate them every 5 minutes or so. After 25 minutes, shake wings again, and then fry at 400 for 6 minutes to make wings extra crunchy.
Make sauce. As wings are in final fry, melt butter in small pot on stovetop, adding in nandos sauce when it is melted. Stir well to mix, remove from heat.
Toss in sauce. Add chicken wings when fried to a large bowl. Drizzle sauce over wings, stirring them to mix sauce evenly. Toss wings in sauce until evenly coated.
Enjoy! Plate and serve immediately.

Tips and Tricks to Perfect Air Fried Nando’s Wings

There are a couple of tips and tricks to get perfect air fried wings every time – to get the best wings, follow these simple tricks:

Don’t stack on top of each other. While it will take extra time, wings should be given enough room to crisp up in the basket on their own – overcrowding the pan will cause the chicken to not fry at as high a temperature, making them soggier and less crispy and crunchy.

Shake basket every 5 minutes. This will help to ensure your wings crisp evenly. Some people flip their wings with tongs – which is certainly more accurate – but if you’d like to speed up the process, shaking the basket well will help move the wings around enough to flip them without having to flip each individual wing. Simply remove the basket as the air fryer is cooking and give it a quick shake – then place back in the fryer and let it continue to cook.

Toss wings in sauce in a bowl. The easiest way to add sauce to your wings is to place wings from the air fryer into a large bowl, and then drizzle sauce mixture on top, tossing wings in it as you go. When wings are coated, plate and serve immediately.

Extra Crunchy Air Fried Wings. If you want super-crunchy air fried wings, there is a little bit of a process to get the wings to crisp without breading (your sauce will be fried in with the wings at the end for a chicken wing that is less wet or sticky feeling, and more crunchy.) To get extra crunchy wings, follow these steps: