You’re 30 minutes away from the crispiest, crunchiest, tastiest chicken wings ever: Korean fried chicken.
If you’ve never tried it, is an extra crunchy double fried chicken tossed in a sweet and spicy sauce. It’s like the best hot wings ever.
What is Korean fried chicken?
Korean fried chicken is classically double fried extra crispy wings and drummettes that are then coated in a sticky, sweet, and spicy sauce. It’s like buffalo wings amped up with the power of gochujang.
Air fryer Korean fried chicken
We’ve always loved the idea of making Korean fried chicken at home, but even with as much as we cook, deep frying is never fun, so we’ve never done it. Steph suggested using the air fryer, which I thought was a genius idea, and I developed this double air fry technique that produced a pretty darn crispy chicken that I think rivals the best of the best deep fried versions while being way healthier.
How to make Korean fried chicken
The secret of Korean fried chicken is the double frying. Double frying in the air fryer works just as well as it does with deep frying, but way easier. The secret is to coat your chicken after the first fry using a spray/mist of oil. It’s not totally necessary, but it really helps. To make Korean fried chicken in an air fryer:
- Coat the chicken. I coated the chicken first with oil to help with heat transfer, then salt and pepper, then corn or potato starch, which is what Asian-style chicken is classically made with for a lighter, crispier outer shell.
- Air fry the chicken. 400ºF for 15 minutes. There’s no need to preheat the air fryer.
- Make the sauce. While the chicken is air frying, make the sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients, then heating it up to a very slight boil (or even just microwaving it for a minute).
- Flip the chicken. When 15 minutes is up, flip the chicken and continue air frying for another 5 minutes. Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.
- Double fry and sauce. After the chicken has cooled, spray it with oil again, then air fry it for the final time at 400ºF for 5 minutes. Remove and toss in sauce, then enjoy immediately.
Korean fried chicken sauce
The magical sauce that goes on Korean fried chicken is a mixture of honey, brown sugar, gochujang, and ketchup. Really: ketchup is a very important ingredient if you want to keep things authentic. It’s important to note that this is just one possible sauce – there are other sauces for Korean fried chicken out there, but this one (in America, at least) is the iconic one.
What is gochujang?
Gochujang is very slightly spicy fermented Korean paste that goes great in everything. We also use it for our sweet and spicy gochujang honey roast chicken and potatoes, our 10 minute spicy beef weeknight stir fry udon, and our kimchi stew with mochi egg recipe.. Traditionally it comes in tubs, but these days you can find it in much more convenient squeeze bottles in the Asian aisle of literally any grocery store.
What if I don’t have spray oil?
Spray oil is really good, cheap, and irreplaceable in the kitchen – especially if you have an air fryer. It’s not worse for you than any other kind of oil, as long as you know when to use it and its limitations. We like a nice high smoke point propellant free oil, but you can use any oil you want (except olive because of its low smoke point) and you can even make your own.
Deep/pan fry Korean fried chicken
If you don’t have an air fryer (you should really consider getting one as they are great and cheap these days) you can easily do it the classic way: fry the chicken until golden brown, then remove and let cool a bit before dropping it back in for a few more minutes. Then toss in sauce, as usual.
Oven baked korean fried chicken
If you don’t have an air fryer, you can use an oven to bake these wings. Just follow the recipe as is, but preheat the oven to 425ºF and bake the wings on the middle rack for 30 minutes, then turn them and continue for another 10-20 minutes (50 minutes total). Toss them in the sauce once they are cool enough to handle.
Will this sauce work with any kind of fried chicken?
Yes! If you are feeling lazy, you can just make the sauce and toss it in grocery store or chain fried chicken. It won’t be as good or quite the same, but still pretty awesome.
How does it compare to delivery?
Korean fried chicken is available as a delivery item in most major cities these days. While this might seem like more work than just ordering delivery, right after I made this chicken, we went out and tried a local version – hot and fresh – to compare and contrast. The homemade KFC was both tastier and crispier.
I hope you get some properly good KFC in your life asap. Hot and fresh.
-Mike
Air Fryer Korean Fried Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken wings
- 1 tbsp oil
- 3 tbsp corn starch
For the sauce
- 1 tbsp ketchup
- 1 tbsp gochujang see note
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 0.5 tbsp soy sauce
- 0.5 tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 0.5 tbsp ginger grated
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
Special Equipment
- air fryer
Instructions
- Coat the chicken with the oil, then season with salt and pepper. Toss with corn starch.
- Spray the air fryer basket with oil or use a paper towel to wipe a thin coat of oil onto it. Arrange the chicken in a single layer and air fry the chicken at 400ºF for 15 minutes.
- While the chicken is air frying, combine the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until it comes to a brief boil. Remove from heat and set aside.
- When the 15 minutes is up, flip the chicken and air fry another 5 minutes, then transfer the chicken onto a plate or rack to cool for 5 minutes.
- After the chicken has cooled, spray the chicken with a very light coating of oil (optional), place the chicken back in the air fryer and fry another 5 minutes at 400ºF.
- Toss in the sauce, making sure to get every nook and cranny. Enjoy immediately with wedges of lime and slices of green onion.
This recipe looks amazing! What changes would you recommend if we used boneless chicken breast? Thanks!
boneless chicken breast will cook a lot faster, i’d try, 375 for 3 minutes, flip, then another 3 minutes, let it cool down, then do the double fry at 400 for another 5 minutes. it will definitely be not as moist as the wings though!
do you have a similar adjustment for chicken thighs i.e. to make a sandwich out of this? :)
hi colin,
for thighs, please check out this post: Air Fryer Chicken Thighs or if you just want a time, 12-15 mins at 360°, flipping halfway depending on size :)
I love page
Love this recipe, thank you! I would recommend adding the salt and pepper to taste in the ingredients list. I didn’t see it there and completely glossed over when reading the instructions. I would maybe leave the wings to airfare for 10 min rather than 5 min right before tossing the sauce. It didn’t seem like the corn starch completed soaked into the chicken.
I never leave comments but really need to for this. These were incredible. Like restaurant quality wings. Highly recommend, will make again and again. We didn’t really follow the times because we were making more and it took longer (we used a rack to make a second layer), we just air fried until they were done to our liking.
Loved this recipe and so did my ultra-picky parents (that’s saying something!) Thank you for making it so clear cut- never dreamed of making Korean fried chicken on my own! I had to cook in many batches as my air fryer is quite small, but it still worked great!
Wow! I made these tonight and not only were they easy to make, but they were THE most delicious wings I have ever had. Thank you so much for the recipe!
Delicious! Tripled the sauce for about 12 drumsticks, otherwise followed the recipe. We’ve had these at Korean restaurants and these are just as good (and lower fat). Thank you! This is the second recipe I’ve made from your site, and now looking for number three!
amaing! Loved it! Made it like 4 times already using wings/drumsticks/thighs.
We made these tonight, my son and I. Thanks so much! They exceeded our expectations.
This recipe is literally so easy to make and the sauce is AMAZING! Cooking times will vary based on size of wings. Since mine were a little smaller they were a little overdone with these cooking times. But still overall delicious! Would probably reduce cooking times in the future for smaller wings
these were amazing!! my husband LOVED these. i’d love to make these as boneless wings! do you think the cornstarch will great the same crispiness w skinless chicken breast? anyway the sauce was perfect, i love your page!
hi elle,
it won’t be as crispy because the skin adds a lot of the crisp!
Just amazing!
Absolutely delicious! Will definitely make again. Thank you for the recipe!
Superb.
Possibly the best fried Chicken I’ve ever made, or come to that had.
Hi
I was wondering if the calories written was just for one person or the whole meal?
Made With boneless breast and did not adjust And it was perfect
Knew I could trust this due to their extensive trials on KFC Korean Fried Chicken. Tried this recipe for game night to test out our new Ninja Air Fryer. I didn’t have brown sugar so replaced it with Coconut Palm sugar and used Avocado oil for the pre-coating/spray. The meat fell off the bones and were cooked to perfection. What a treat to set the standard now for everything Air Fryer… Thanks Mike & Steph!
Tasty and super easy to execute! Restaurant quality!
Wow looks amazing, definitely going to try! Is it specifically gochujang paste or sauce? Is there a difference, I’m going to try it with the sauce see how that goes.
Tried this recipe today using chicken thighs with bones and skin. Skin crispy and with the sauce it was simply scrumptious. Definitely on our menu again. Thanks 👍
Amazing website and Delicious recipes
Made it today for lunch and for 300g of mid wing sections (8 wings) I AF for 12 minutes, rested 5 then AF 5 min. Turned out really crispy and not dry. Tastes just like store bought but much healthier
Amazing recipe! great detail and organization throughout the blog, and the food looks amazing.