Deep frying 24 chicken wings at home sounds like a project your smoke detector will want to weigh in on, but this 1990 recipe for oven fried chicken wings with Ritz crackers gives you the same shatteringly crisp result without a single cup of frying oil.
The secret is in the crackers themselves: Ritz crackers arrive pre-loaded with fat, salt, and enough natural sugar to brown beautifully in a hot oven, which plain breadcrumbs can't replicate on their own. You get golden, crispy wings on a foil-lined pan, with a from-scratch homemade chili barbecue sauce simmering alongside that makes people ask for the recipe before they've finished their first wing.
Ritz crackers have been a fixture in American kitchens since Nabisco launched them in 1934, and home cooks figured out long before food blogs existed that grinding them into fine crumbs created a coating with more fat, flavor, and crisping power than anything plain. The smell of buttery cracker crumbs toasting against chicken skin in a 375°F oven is one of those specific, instantly recognizable things. You'll know the wings are almost ready before the timer confirms it.
Back in the 1990s Kitchen
In 1990, the Super Bowl was a cultural institution, Seinfeld was quietly beginning its nine-season run, and Home Alone was packing movie theaters well into winter. Friday nights meant Blockbuster VHS tapes, and every party spread was built around finger food that could hold up on a platter while everyone watched the game. Nobody wanted to stand over a deep fryer for two hours just to feed a crowd.
Ritz crackers appeared throughout late 1980s and 1990s American home cooking as a casserole topper, a shortbread substitute, and a coating for chicken that worked better than it had any right to. Home economics teachers and church cookbook contributors understood that the fat contained in each cracker would do the frying work from inside the crust as it baked. This recipe is a product of that practical era of American home cooking.
The National Chicken Council has tracked chicken wing consumption for decades, and the wing as a party food became a true cultural staple across the 1980s and 1990s, with Super Bowl weekend alone now accounting for nearly 1.5 billion pounds of consumption annually. This recipe arrived right in the middle of that rise, and it solved the home cook's core problem with wings: getting them crispy without a commercial deep fryer.
Does any of this take you back to a game day spread where someone showed up with something impossibly crispy and nobody asked how it was done?
What Makes These Oven Fried Chicken Wings Work
What "Wing Tips Removed" Actually Means
A whole chicken wing has three sections: the drumette (the meaty part that looks like a tiny drumstick), the flat (the middle section with two parallel bones and maximum crispy skin), and the wing tip (the small, pointed end with almost no meat, just skin, bone, and cartilage).
This recipe uses drumettes and flats only, which means your first job is cutting off and discarding the pointed tip before any dredging happens. Most grocery stores sell bags of wings already broken down into drumettes and flats with the tip removed, so check your package before you start cutting.
If your wings are whole, find the joint where the flat meets the tip, wiggle your knife into the cartilage gap, and cut straight through. It takes about two seconds per wing once you've done it once. A sharp pair of kitchen shears cuts through wing joints faster and more cleanly than a chef's knife, and a good pair sits flat in your hand so you're not fighting the joint to find the gap.
Don't throw those tips away. They're loaded with collagen and make genuinely excellent chicken stock. Drop them in a zip-top bag and freeze them until you have enough to make a batch of homemade chicken broth ... your future soups will notice the difference.
Oven Fried Chicken Wings with Ritz Crackers Recipe
This vintage oven fried chicken wings recipe, adapted from a 1990 cookbook, achieves a buttery, golden-brown crust by coating 24 wings in crushed Ritz crackers and evaporated milk, then baking them on butter-lined foil pans at 375°F without a drop of frying oil. The accompanying homemade chili barbecue sauce, made from canned Italian-style tomatoes, cider vinegar, brown sugar, and celery seed simmered for 30 minutes, provides the tangy, piquant dipping sauce the wings were designed around.
- Total Time: 75 Minutes
- Yield: 6 Servings 1x
Ingredients
- Butter or margarine, room temperature, for greasing the pans
- 24 chicken wings, wing tips removed
- 1 1/2 cups evaporated milk (one 12-ounce can)
- 1/2 pound Ritz crackers, crushed to fine crumbs (about 2 1/3 cups) — Crush with a rolling pin in a sealed zip-top bag, or pulse in a food processor for about 20 seconds
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Fresh pepper to taste
- 1 1/2 cups drained Italian-style tomatoes (one standard sized 14.5-ounce can)
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons dry mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Make the Chili Barbecue Sauce (start this first):
- Combine all sauce ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Transfer to an uncovered, nonreactive saucepan (stainless steel, enameled, or similar material).
- Simmer over medium-low heat for 30 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce thickens and the flavors concentrate. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Make the Wings:
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line 2 baking sheets or jelly-roll pans with foil. Brush the foil generously with softened butter or margarine.
- Place the chicken wings in a large bowl and pour the evaporated milk over them. Stir to moisten thoroughly.
- In a separate bowl or on a large piece of wax paper, mix together the cracker crumbs, salt, and a good grinding of fresh pepper.
- Dredge the wings one at a time in the crumb mixture, pressing to coat all surfaces. Transfer immediately to the prepared foil-lined baking sheets, arranging in a single layer with space between wings.
- Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the chicken is tender and the coating is deep golden brown. Start checking at 45 minutes. Serve hot or cold with Chili Barbecue Sauce on the side for dipping.
Notes
- Make the sauce ahead: The chili barbecue sauce keeps refrigerated in a sealed container for up to 2 weeks and freezes well for up to 3 months.
- Crumb consistency matters: Fine, uniform crumbs produce even browning across the whole batch. A food processor gives the most consistent results.
- Pan choice matters: Use heavy-gauge rimmed baking sheets. Thin, dark pans warp at temperature and create uneven browning.
- Nonreactive pan is required for the sauce: Cider vinegar reacts with raw aluminum and can pull a metallic taste into the sauce. Use stainless steel or enameled.
- Prep Time: 20 Minutes
- Cook Time: 55 Minutes
- Category: Appetizer, Dinner
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
How to Get Perfectly Crispy Oven Fried Wings Every Time
Recipe Variations, Serving Ideas, & Storage
Recipe Variations
Frequently Asked Questions
Oven fried chicken wings with Ritz cracker coating are best served immediately after baking while the crust is at its crispest. For a party, you can bake them up to one hour ahead and hold them uncovered on the baking sheet in a 200°F oven. This keeps them warm without steaming the crust the way covering them with foil would.
The crispy texture in these oven fried chicken wings comes from two things working together: the fat already present in the Ritz cracker crumbs, and the layer of butter on the foil-lined pan. As the wings bake at 375°F, the fat in the crackers renders and fries the crust from inside out, while the butter on the pan surface fries the bottom of each wing from below. The result is a crust that crisps from both directions simultaneously, no frying oil required.
Ritz crackers are the specific cracker this recipe depends on because their fat content and mild sweetness create the buttery, golden crust. Club crackers are the closest substitute with a similar fat profile. Saltines can be used in a pinch, but they contain significantly less fat and produce a thinner, drier coating that doesn't hold up as well over the full baking time.
Oven fried chicken wings are done when the Ritz cracker coating is deep, evenly golden-brown and the meat feels firm when pressed at the thickest part of the drumette. If you have an instant-read thermometer on hand, the internal temperature should read 165°F at the thickest point, clear of any bone.
Oven fried chicken wings with Ritz cracker coating can be frozen after baking, though the crust loses some crispness in the process. Freeze them in a single layer on a sheet pan first, then transfer to a freezer-safe bag for up to two months. Reheat directly from frozen in a 400°F oven for 18 to 20 minutes on a wire rack set over a baking sheet to restore as much crispness as possible.
The homemade chili barbecue sauce in this 1990 recipe contains drained finely chopped canned Italian-style tomatoes, chopped onion, tomato paste, water, cider vinegar, packed brown sugar, dry mustard, hot red pepper flakes, a pinch of celery seed, salt, and pepper. All ingredients go into an uncovered nonreactive saucepan together and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce thickens and the flavors concentrate into something considerably more complex than the individual components suggest.
The Ritz cracker coating and evaporated milk binder work with bone-in thighs and drumsticks, though the baking time increases to approximately 55 to 70 minutes at 375°F depending on piece size. Wings are the intended cut because they cook quickly, develop maximum crispness along their narrow profile, and are built for the finger food format this recipe is designed around.
The chili barbecue sauce contains cider vinegar, which is acidic enough to react with raw aluminum or uncoated cast iron and pull a faint metallic taste into the finished sauce. A stainless steel, enameled, or anodized aluminum saucepan prevents that reaction entirely. The original recipe specifies this directly, listing stainless steel and enameled as acceptable materials.
This oven fried chicken wings recipe uses 24 chicken wings with wing tips removed and serves 6 people as a main course finger food meal. As a party appetizer alongside other dishes, the same batch of wings comfortably serves 8 to 10 guests. Plan on 4 wings per person for a standalone meal, or 2 to 3 wings per person as part of a larger spread.
The chili barbecue sauce doubles easily in a larger nonreactive saucepan. Add 5 to 10 minutes to the simmering time to account for the increased volume and taste for seasoning before removing from heat. The doubled batch keeps refrigerated for up to two weeks and freezes well for up to three months in sealed containers.
Come Back for Seconds (This One Will Go Fast)
This recipe has been clearing party platters since the 1990s, and there's a real reason it survived every food trend between then and now. Crispy oven fried chicken wings with a Ritz cracker coating and homemade chili barbecue sauce require no deep fryer, no complicated technique, and no ingredients that require a specialty grocery store. You bring them hot to the table and the platter is gone before you've had a chance to sit down. That really is the whole story.
Did your family have a go-to crispy wing recipe growing up? A cracker coating, a flour dredge, something with cornstarch that nobody could explain? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. And if you make these oven fried chicken wings, please leave a rating and a review. It helps more readers find this recipe and keeps these vintage classics exactly where they belong: in active rotation.
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