Pressure Cooker Frozen Chicken Wings

This is how you make tender and delicious pressure cooker frozen chicken wings! Makes a great appetizer or dinner in your Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi using your favorite barbecue sauce. From freezer to dinner in less than 30 minutes!

These pressure cooker frozen chicken wings recipe is the bomb! Here on The Typical Mom we’ve come up with a lot of easy Instant Pot recipes and this is one of our favorite pressure cooker appetizers. Super quick and requires only 2 ingredients really. (originally published 1/18, affiliate links present)

Instant Pot Chicken Wings From Frozen

Don’t these look delicious! We love chicken wings any way we can get them, but knowing how long to cook frozen chicken wings in the Instant Pot or a pressure cooker can come in really handy!

Whether you’ve forgotten to make something for a potluck, people come over unexpectedly, or you just want a quick yummy meal for dinner we will share how to cook frozen meat here.

FIRST – You should sign up for my free newsletter so you get new posts emailed to you twice a week and never miss out on anything! Now let’s start with a few basic tips:

• Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
• Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
  • This is a great InstaPot cookbook and a set of wooden utensils are great to grab too.
  • I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
    • You should still deglaze pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.

For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.

Frozen Instant Pot Chicken Wings

I’m serious….just TWO ingredients!! I always seem to have frozen chicken wings and breasts in the freezer for just in case situations and started with sharing how to cook frozen chicken in the Instant Pot.

That worked really well when preparing shredded chicken to use inside sliders…another great appetizer idea.

Then moved on to chicken wings and experimented a bit with the timing until I got it just right!!

How to Cook Frozen Wings in Instant Pot

Here they are! Super moist and really almost fall off the bone but I didn’t want the meat to just fall off. The fun is eating them off the bone in my opinion.

I guess that is the part that is up to you. I cooked mine for 21 minutes and they were perfect.

• Now if you wanted the meat to fall off the bone I would set for 25 minutes. But to me that would just be a pot of bones and chicken pieces. 

The bag of frozen chicken wings I bought from the store had rather large pieces.

Just remember to not exceed the 3/4 mark inside your 6 qt. Instant Pot. I only felt comfortable adding 12 in that size.

Instant Pot Frozen Wings

I think if mine were a bit smaller I could add closer to 15, but you just want to keep it below the 3/4 mark. 1 bottle of bbq sauce was enough once they were cooked down.

It won’t cover them all when initially put into the pressure cooker but when they thaw it will be plenty so don’t worry about that.

Pick any brand of sauce you like but not honey style. I like whatever is on sale and has a bit of sweet and spicy personally. Honey may cause the burn notice to occur though.

You can add a bit of hot sauce in there to give it a kick, some sliced onions if you want, and even some pineapple tidbits are a good add in like I did with our Hawaiian Instant Pot shredded chicken dish…super easy too.

Instant Pot frozen chicken wings

They soak up all those delicious flavors. If you just want to make them plain it would work the same way using chicken broth.

If you aren’t down for bbq wings then use a teriyaki style sauce like I used in our Instant Pot spicy teriyaki chicken thighs recipe.

• It is up to you but barbecue sauce is pretty much loved by all and really cheap too. There are so many different types of sauces with a variety of flavors and heat levels too.

If you prefer the skins to be a bit crispy, once these are done you can put them into your convection oven or oven at 375 degrees for a few minutes like we did here with our Instant Pot teriyaki ribs. Or you can use your broiler for about 5 minutes to crisp them up.

We don’t eat the skin either way so we are fine with them straight out of the pot. If you like REALLY crispy chicken wings you can throw them under the broiler for a few minutes and for another trick you should read our post on how to bake crispy chicken wings in the oven!

Pressure cooker frozen chicken wings

This is what you’re going to need: Barbecue sauce – use one that is not super high in sugar (honey style) as those may burn (I like this one) – If you like really spicy buffalo wings use Franks hot sauce

1. Use 12-15 frozen chicken wings. Do not fill your Instant Pot or pressure cooker more than 3/4 full. So the total number depends on the size of your wings.
2. Water
3. Optional additions – pineapple chunks and/or hot sauce

Frozen chicken wings in air fryer are easy too and can be cooked as quickly as 12 minutes if you just want a few! You’ll need to toss the wings like this in some dipping sauce for chicken wings with a sprinkle of blue cheese to add more flavor but they’re great in less than 15 minutes!

Of course you can make these as an easy Ninja Foodi recipe as well. Any brand will do.

And you’ll probably want some sort of yummy sauce poured on the top when they are tender and done to perfection. Buffalo or BBQ sauce are the most common. Remember, you already have what you need right inside the pot though when you make it how I suggest below!

Frozen Chicken Wings Instant Pot Cook Time

If you’d like them crispy put your chicken wings on a baking sheet with sauce set the timer and broil for about 3-4 minutes cook time. Rather use an air fryer for this step to get crispy chicken skin. Totally get it, just set at 400 degrees for about 4 minutes or so until as crispy as you’d like.

Instant Pot Duo Frozen Chicken Wings

Have leftovers? You can totally save them in an airtight container. Then when you are ready to enjoy them the next day this is how to reheat wings in air fryer to crisp them up again. If you add a bit more sauce brushed on before heating them it will get nicely baked on and enhance the flavors even more.

After you try this you should make these Instant Pot recipes

1. Pressure cooker frozen whole chicken is simple and healthy
2. Frozen chicken legs Instant Pot style is here.
3. Tasty Pressure cooker chicken and rice dish is our fave
4. Here are a lot more Easy Instant Pot chicken recipes

Want to see a few of my favorite things that I am totally obsessed with?? Take a peek and see how many you might already have…twinsies!

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Pressure Cooker Frozen Chicken Wings

This is how you make tender and delicious pressure cooker frozen chicken wings! Makes a great appetizer or dinner in your Instant Pot using your favorite barbecue sauce. Wings are the best finger food we say and with this trick you can make them often. From freezer to dinner in less than 30 minutes!

Course Appetizer, Entree, Main Course

Cuisine American

Keyword barbecue, chicken, frozen, instant pot, pressure cooker, wings

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 21 minutes minutes

Total Time 26 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Calories 194kcal

Author The Typical Mom

Ingredients

• 12 – 15 chicken wings frozen
• 3/4 c water
• 1 bottle barbecue sauce 20 oz.
• Dry Rub for Chicken Wings optional, can sprinkle on after cooking, then broil to crisp
• 1 tsp hot sauce (optional, more or less depending on taste)

Instructions

• Pour half the bottle of barbecue sauce into your Instant Pot or pressure cooker.
• Put your frozen chicken wings on top of your sauce and pour the remainder of your barbecue sauce on top of them. Then add 3/4 c water into your bbq sauce bottle and shake it well to get remaining sauce out. Pour this on top of your wings (this is an important step).
• If you choose to add hot sauce sprinkle on top now.
• Close the lid and steam valve. Set to manual, pressure, high for 21 minutes. ** Note, if your wings are much smaller or you’re using fewer wings than I did (mine were quite large) it will not take this long (set for 18 min. for 10 wings and perfect)
• Do a natural release, lift lid carefully and serve!
• If you'd like them crispy put your chicken wings on a baking sheet and under your broiler for 3-4 minutes or until as crispy as you'd like. OR throw into a preheated air fryer at 400 degrees for 3-4 minutes

Video

Nutrition Facts

Pressure Cooker Frozen Chicken Wings

Amount Per Serving (8 oz)

Calories 194

% Daily Value*

Sodium 1196mg52%

Potassium 262mg7%

Carbohydrates 46g15%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 37g41%

Vitamin A 255IU5%

Vitamin C 1.6mg2%

Calcium 37mg4%

Iron 0.7mg4%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.