I finally figured out why my chicken wings came out rubbery after 3 months of guessing

Took me forever to realize I was overcrowding the basket. I'd dump a whole pack of wings in there and wonder why they steamed instead of crisped. Then I measured it out one day, 6 wings max in my 5.8 quart basket spread out. That was 2 months ago and every batch since has been perfect. Anyone else have a simple mistake that took way too many tries to fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

casey_campbell20d ago

Oh man, "overcrowding the basket" hit me right in the feels. I did the exact same thing for way too long with my air fryer. I was basically making steamed chicken nuggets and wondering why they tasted sad. The real kicker for me was realizing I had to pat them dry with paper towels first too. Like, a whole step I was just skipping because I thought the air fryer was magic or something. Now I do single layer only, no touching, and it's night and day.

briannguyen19d ago

I read somewhere that air fryers basically work like tiny convection ovens and people forget that. So if you cram stuff in there it just traps steam and you lose all the crispiness. The drying thing is huge too. I started taking an extra minute to pat my fries dry before tossing them in oil and it made a bigger difference than I expected.

-1