Non-brand name football season is back, baby! And that means one thing: billionaires making taxpayers pay for private stadium — wait, no: fried chicken wings! Great wings are a lot of work to make, and youre busy cheering for {Athlete Embroiled in Scandal} to lead {Problematic Team Name} to [Unlicensed Big Game Name Redacted], so to save you research, I ate chicken wings at nationwide take-out spots. This guide guarantees youll get wings worth your time and dollar so you can focus on the fandom.
The rules for this pre-season championship: If your favorite fried chicken chain doesnt sell wings, its disqualified. For even footing, I tried the wings plain, even if theyre typically sold sauced. Tip: Don’t ask the cashier, “Can I have my wings naked?” that sounds weird. Got it? Now play the game.
Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.
Although Little Caesars makes one of the better big-chain pizzas, they serve the most disappointing wings. As far as I can tell, theyre not freshly made but kept in a heat chamber. This gives them a dark Maillard brown color, which looks richer than they taste.
Despite low heat, theyre not soft. Maybe they have something added to them that makes them look darker than they really are, or my batch didn’t have time to break down tougher tissue. While the flavor wasnt horrible, their appealing color belied tough meat and skin like chewing gum. Also, these wings were the coldest I’ve ever eaten, even though they weren’t even the first ones I bought on that weeknight chicken run. They were room temperature, while the Dominos Id bought 15 minutes earlier remained hot. To be honest these were gross through and through.
And Im not counting sauces against a brand, but the buffalo ranch at Little Caesars was bottom-rung. Ugh. Its pizza may be Augustus, but these wings are pure Nero.
Chicken wings are an iconic American food. All over the country, bars, restaurants, and fast food chains serve these tasty pieces of fried or baked chicken. It can be hard to tell who has the best wings when there are so many to choose from.
This article will rank some of the best chicken wing chains by how good their wings are. We’ll look at things like how crispy, juicy, flavorful, and tasty the wings are overall, as well as the sauces they come with. Whether you like your wings plain, with sauce, or dry-rubbed, this guide will help you find the chain that serves wings that you want.
Methodology
To create this wing ranking, we consulted reviews from food critics and everyday wing lovers. We also conducted our own taste tests of the top national wing chains. Factors we considered included:
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Crispiness of the batter/breading – The best wings should have a crunchy exterior without being greasy
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Tenderness and juiciness of the meat – Wings shouldn’t be dry or stringy inside.
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Flavorful sauces and seasonings that enhance (not mask) the chicken flavor.
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Variety of sauce and seasoning options – The best chains offer diverse flavors.
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Quality and freshness – High-quality wings just taste better.
Keeping these criteria in mind, here are the chicken wing chains that came out on top.
1. Wingstop
Wingstop earned the top spot on our list for their always-fresh, hand-sauced wings. This chain is all about flavor—they even call themselves “the wing experts.” At Wingstop, wings are fried to order so they come out crispy every time. With 11 signature sauces and dry rubs to choose from, including fan favorites like Louisiana Rub, Atomic, and Mango Habanero, it’s hard to go wrong. We love that you can customize your spice level and combine flavors. The wings have a satisfying crunch, and the sauces never overpower the juicy chicken flavor. Wingstop hits every mark for fantastic wings.
2. Buffalo Wild Wings
With sauces that range from not spicy at all to “burn your face off” spicy, BWW has a lot of options. Their bone-in and boneless wings are the perfect mix of crispy outside and soft inside. With more than 20 signature sauces and dry rubs to choose from and the option to make your own, there is a taste for everyone. Mango Habanero, Jammin’ Jalapeño, and Caribbean Jerk are some of their special sauces that we love the most. The wings have a nice spice kick and tangy flavor. Buffalo Wild Wings is a good place to get great wings in a lot of different styles.
3. Hooters
The original “breastaurant” may be known for its waitresses, but Hooters also makes some legit good wings. They fry their wings to order so they come out hot and crispy. Hooters offers seven wing styles including smoked, roasted, naked, and the classic original recipe. The Daytona sauce wings are a favorite—the sweet and tangy flavor complements the chicken nicely. Hooters strikes that ideal balance of crunchy exterior and juicy interior. Their wings are consistently tasty.
4. Zaxby’s
This southern chicken chain knows how to fry up some mouthwatering wings. Zaxby’s wings are always exceptionally crispy with a thicker breading that holds up well to sauces. The chicken is juicy and flavors like Hot Honey Mustard and Spicy Garlic are standouts. Their extensive range of heat levels from Wimpy to Nuclear means you can get mild or extra spicy. Zaxby’s wings are simply delicious.
5. Bonchon
Korean fried chicken is a unique type of food, and Bonchon does it right. Their wings are double-fried and very crispy, and the sticky-sweet sauce is very addicting. We love the soy garlic and spicy options. The craggy batter helps the sauce cling to every nook. Bonchon’s wings pack some serious crunch and burst with flavor. Definitely give them a try for something different.
6. Dave & Buster’s
In addition to games and entertainment, Dave & Buster’s takes their wings seriously. The jumbo wings are juicy inside a seasoned batter and they stay crispy throughout your meal. Great sauce options like Sweet Sriracha and Nashville Hot complement the wings nicely. We appreciate that you can customize spice levels too. Dave & Buster’s knows how to keep their wings top quality.
7. Atomic Wings
This New York-based chain stays true to their buffalo wing roots. Their classic nuclear sauce strikes that perfect balance of vinegary tang and spicy heat. The wings fry up with a solid crunch factor. We love their creative flavors like Bleu Cheese Ranch and Pineapple Teriyaki. Overall, Atomic Wings does traditional buffalo-style wings right.
8. Wings Over
Wings Over keeps it simple—their wings come in three heat levels: mild, hot, and “suicidal.” We appreciate the straightforward approach. The jumbo wings from this Northeastern chain achieve an admirable level of crispiness. Their classic buffalo sauce has a nice butteriness. Wings Over doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, they just focus on executing delicious wings.
9. Wingstop
Yet another pizza chain attempting wings, Pizza Hut unexpectedly impressed us with their crispy fried wings. Their flavors like Sweet Chili and Cajun are bolder and more complex than typical fast food wings. The batter gets ultra crunchy without tasting greasy. Pizza Hut just does basic wings really well—a pleasant surprise.
10. Applebee’s
Applebee’s offers both boneless and “double crunch” bone-in wings. The double crunch are fried twice for an extra crispy coating. While not mind-blowing, Applebee’s wings are consistent and reliable. Classic flavors like Garlic Parmesan and Spicy Buffalo are done right. It’s tough to mess up wings too badly, and Applebee’s hits all the basics.
Which Chain Truly Has the Best Wings?
After extensive tasting and analysis, Wingstop stands out as the clear winner for best chain restaurant wings. Their freshness, crunch factor, juiciness, and variety of bold, craveable flavors earn them the top spot. But whether you prefer dry rubs or dripping wet sauces, this guide points you toward the chains that get wings right. The next time that wing craving strikes, visit one of these spots to get your fix!
1 Checkers / Rally’s
Your local Checkers may be called Rallys in a Hardees/Carls Jr. situation, but theyre essentially the same. Now, heres some real nice crispiness for fast-food wings. Dominos could learn a thing or two about texture from this batch of bird limbs. But so, too, could Checkers learn from Dominos and put a little more flavor into these. Combined, theyd produce a real contender. Still, crispy basic wings beat mushy, flavorful ones. And remember, Im eating these plain. Youre probably going to have some sauce on them to help the chicken shine. I dont mean to say theres no flavor here. Its just not rippling through the meat. You get a nice taste of the chicken itself, supplemented with a little salt and pepper. Its understated, but the more I eat it, the more I enjoy it for its own sake instead of a strong signature. Still, there are moister, more flavorful chicken than this.
Seriously? Pizza Hut serves the best fried chicken of the pizza chains? Pizza Hut? Well, maybe it makes sense. The folks at parent company Yum! Brands also make KFC, though Pizza Huts unbreaded wings are quite different. I wasn’t upset about having my sixth lunch of the day at Pizza Hut, even though I was almost too full to move. That says something.
When these came out of the fryer, they were really tasty, and they didn’t give me heartburn or anything else like that happens when I eat Pizza Hut’s actual pizza. There were no weird additives, just fresh wings with crispy skin and surprisingly good flavor, even though they seemed very plain. Hey, its what I ordered, and they did it well. In fact, aside from the addictive eleven herbs and spices, theres a strong case to be made that Pizza Hut makes better wings unbreaded than sister brand KFC does with a delicious, deep-fried shell.
1 Buffalo Wild Wings GO
Aw, B-double-dub, you were supposed to be the chosen one! Its your whole brand! What a miss these dried-out wings were. The skin was crisp-ish but not crunchy, and the rubbery kind of chewy: another victim of that heat lamp life is my bet. They were dry enough to stick to the teeth, but the meat itself was nevertheless impressively moist, not stringy or chalky.
Buffalo Wild Wings gives you very welcome celery and carrots on the side like your local bar, and boy, do they beat the chicken for freshness. While the taste was good, it was also minimal. These wings were decidedly not wild. There was no detectable seasoning beyond salt. Again, no points lost in the sauce sideline, but its obvious these wings want to be sauced. Ordering them plain is a losing bet, yet the orange chicken sauce I pulled on the side was cloying and did nothing to redeem the meat. If you go here, stick to buffalo sauce and pray for better results. Maybe its different at the fast-casual, but the GO takeout is far short of “worth your money” territory.
Papa Johns wings looked like theyd taste so much better, but displayed the same browning minus flavor that Little Caesars sells. Its essentially the same wing, although these had more actual chicken flavor and were not so tough. Theyre the less disappointing version of whats barely worth documenting. Points for being meaty will take you places, though.
These pizza chains are throwing me for a loop. Theres no correlation between pizza quality and chicken worthiness. All I can tell you is that as wings go, theres no redemptive trashy satisfaction here, as one might find dipping a bizarrely chewy pizza crust into a golden ramekin of garlicky not-butter oil. Papa Johns is the first “not bad” but definitely not an order to get with your pizza delivery unless someone among your party is skipping carbs. And frankly, you can get better chain pizza that also makes superior wings.
I tried not to let my views of Dominos pizza color my expectations of these wings, but I will say they exceeded my fears. I thought, if anyone, Dominos would serve up the disappointment I got from Little Caesars. Nope, these arent bad, though theyre not good. They are pretty much the best you can hope for from the chain whose pizza drastically improves when served cold for breakfast the next morning.
Some garlic and maybe pepper are hiding in the meat, giving it an interesting smoky note. It’s not very strong, but it’s interesting enough that you’d like to see it used on a better-cooked wing. Unfortunately, a gummy texture upsets the intrigue, and youre not going to detour for Dominos wings tonight. But at least you can eat these without adding anything else. The flavor will make up for the lack of texture. Ill say this: Dominos makes better chicken wings than Dominos makes pizza.
LIVING on WORLD’S BEST CHICKEN WINGS for 24 HOURS (Gordon Ramsay, KFC, Hot Ones & More)!
FAQ
What restaurant chain has the best wings?
The Best Chain Restaurant Wings, RankedWing Stop Original Hot Wings. Hooters Original Style Medium Wings. Slim Chickens Buffalo Wings. Buffalo Wild Wings Original Buffalo Wings. Twin Peaks The Classic Wings. Applebee’s Double Crunch Classic Buffalo Wings. Chili’s Medium Buffalo Wings. Zaxby’s Tongue Torch Wings.
Does applebees really have the best wings?
Applebee’s Classic Buffalo Boneless Wings were preferred in every region versus the competitive national chains. Applebee’s Classic Buffalo Boneless Wings were statistically significantly preferred at a 95 percent confidence level nationally.