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Air Fryer Honey Mustard Chicken Wings Recipe – perfect crunchy and tender chicken wings from the air fryer with a sticky sweet mustard sauce! These chicken wings are loaded with sticky sweet honey mustard flavor – they are simple to make, and great for a crowd!
If you love honey mustard, and you’re looking for out of this world chicken wing flavor, this recipe is for you. We’re using our air fryer to get crispy, crunchy chicken wings that are tender and juicy inside – the air fryer brings out the most amazing chicken wing flavor!
Don’t want all the extras in a recipe post? We provide a skip to recipe button in the top left corner, as well as a clickable table of contents, just below, to help make this page easier to navigate.
At Sweet C’s, 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.
Table of Contents
How To Air Fry Chicken Wings
You don’t have to worry about wings being cooked through – this method is SO easy in an air fryer. Be sure to find our Blue Cheese Dip recipe here – it’s perfect, chunky, and cooling for chicken wings!
Don’t stack wings 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.
Sweet Mustard Chicken Wing Ingredients
To make this recipe, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- Chicken Wings (2 lbs) – Chicken wings serve as the juicy, tender canvas that turns irresistibly crisp in the air fryer and soaks up every drop of sweet-tangy honey mustard sauce.
- Whole Grain mustard (2 tbsp) – Whole grain mustard adds texture and a tangy, rustic sharpness to the sauce.
- Yellow Mustard (2 tbsp) – Yellow mustard brings classic bold flavor and bright acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Honey (¼ cup) – Honey provides sticky sweetness and helps glaze the wings with a glossy finish.
- Garlic clove (1) – A fresh garlic clove adds aromatic bite that deepens the savory notes.
- Cornstarch (1 tsp) – Cornstarch slightly thickens the sauce so it clings smoothly to the wings.
- Onion powder (½ tsp) – Onion powder adds gentle savory depth without overpowering the honey mustard.
- Salt and pepper – Salt enhances all the flavors, while pepper adds mild heat and balance.
Steps to Make Mustard Honey Chicken Wings
Once you’ve gathered your ingredients, we will use this process:
Prep Ingredients
Mix honey mustard sauce in a bowl, and set aside. Pat defrosted wings dry with a paper towel, season with salt and pepper. Place wings in an oil sprayed air fryer basket.
Prep to Fry
Be sure there is space between each wing so the air can circulate. Cook in batches if needed. Set air fryer to 400 degrees, and pre-heat. Once preheated, put wings in air fryer, and set timer for 20 minutes.
Flip
After about 10 minutes of cooking time, turn wings over. At 20 minutes use a meat thermometer and check meat, cook until wings reach 160 degrees F.
Coat and Enjoy
When wings reach 160 degrees internal temp, transfer to a large bowl, pour sauce of choice over the wings, toss to coat. Return the wings to the air fryer basket, and cook 5 minutes until sauce has glazed and wings are sticky! Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with parsley if desired, and enjoy.
Tips and Tricks for Honey Mustard Air Fryer Wings
How to Cut Chicken Wings – Using a sharp large chefs knife, feel for the joints between the 3 main parts to a chicken wing – the wing tip, the flats, and the drumette. Bend the joints backwards, using your hands, to get them to loosen. Use your knife to feel where the bones come together, and pressing down hard, cut through the joint. (You don’t want to try to cut the bone – but find the space in between the bones.)
Dry the wings really well — moisture is the enemy of crisp skin, so pat them with paper towels until they’re practically squeaky.
Use baking powder for crunch — a light dusting over the wings helps blister the skin and gives that fried-like crisp.
Don’t overcrowd the air fryer — space them out in a single layer; stacked wings will steam instead of crisp.
Flip halfway through cooking — turning the wings ensures even browning and a uniform crunch on all sides.
Brush the sauce on at the end — toss wings in honey mustard after crisping, or brush them in the last 2–3 minutes so they caramelize without burning.
Warm your sauce before tossing — warm honey and mustard mix more smoothly and coat better instead of clumping.
Add Dijon for depth — mixing half Dijon and half yellow mustard gives sweet-sharp flavor without tasting one-note.
Balance sweetness and acid — a splash of apple cider vinegar or lemon brightens the sauce and keeps wings from feeling heavy.
Use parchment liners sparingly — too much lining prevents airflow; perforated parchment is ideal.
Air Fryer Honey Mustard Wings FAQs
Chicken is fully cooked at 165 degrees internal temperature. Chicken wings will reduce in size and meat may begin to pull back from bones when fully cooked.
If you’re looking to avoid more carbs, you can skip the cornstarch step for these wings.
Honey does contain more sugar, but you can use a keto honey substitute – like harmless honey.
They were either too wet or overcrowded; pat wings dry thoroughly with paper towels and cook in a single layer with space between pieces.
Yes — air-fry frozen wings at 360°F for 10 minutes to thaw and dry them out, then season and cook as usual; patting them dry improves crispiness.
Yes — cook the wings ahead, refrigerate, and reheat at 400°F for 6–8 minutes in the air fryer, then sauce right before serving.
They can be — skip flour and use cornstarch or just season and air fry; check your mustard label to ensure it’s gluten-free.
Easy Chicken Wing Recipes
Try my popular Crispy Baked Chicken Wings Recipe post – an oven baked chicken wing recipe you won’t want to miss if you love crunchy classic chicken wing flavor.
Be sure to try these with some air fryer french fries, or homemade blue cheese wing dip – or part of a gameday meal everyone will love!
To find more of our favorite chicken wing recipes – designed to easily feed a crowd – be sure to check out some of our other favorite chicken wing recipes!
Be sure to also check out some of our favorite chicken drumstick recipes – our air fryer piri piri chicken, baked bbq chicken drumsticks, and air fryer chicken drumsticks are all total knockouts and similar to these tasty wing recipes!
You can find even more of our chicken wing recipes in our Chicken Wing Recipe Archives here.
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Air Fryer Honey Mustard Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken wings
For the Honey Mustard Sauce
- 2 tbsp Whole Grain mustard
- 2 tbsp Yellow Mustard
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- ½ tsp onion powder
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Mix honey mustard sauce in a bowl, and set aside.
- Pat defrosted wings dry with a paper towel, season with salt and pepper.
- Place wings in an oil sprayed air fryer basket.
- Be sure there is space between each wing so the air can circulate. Cook in batches if needed.
- Set air fryer to 400 degrees, and pre-heat.
- Once preheated, put wings in air fryer, and set timer for 20 minutes.
- After about 10 minutes of cooking time, turn wings over.
- At 20 minutes use a meat thermometer and check meat, cook until wings reach 160 degrees F.
- When wings reach 160 degrees internal temp, transfer to a large bowl, pour sauce of choice over the wings, toss to coat.
- Return the wings to the air fryer basket, and cook 5 minutes until sauce has glazed and wings are sticky!
- Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with parsley if desired, and enjoy.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
There is no mention of the corn starch. When is that used?
So the cornstarch goes in the sauce, I updated the recipe card to make it clearer. Thank you for pointing out that it was confusing!