Pressure Cooker Frozen Chicken Wings

How to cook pressure cooker frozen chicken wings for an appetizer in your Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi with barbecue sauce is easy. From freezer to dinner in less than 30 minutes, it’s faster than our Baked Frozen Chicken Wings but just as delicious.

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. (affiliate links present)

Frozen Instant Pot Chicken Wings Recipe

Don’t these look delicious! We make air fryer chicken wings all the time but had to figure out how long to cook frozen chicken wings in the Instant Pot or a pressure cooker at times when we forgot to defrost ahead of time.

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.

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!!

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.

Ingredients

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 or liquid of choice to steam them essentially
3. Optional additions would be some sort of coating like bbq or hot sauce

How to Cook Frozen Wings in Instant Pot

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.

I guess the cook time is partly 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. 

Tips

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.

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!

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

How to make your chicken skin crispy when done

If you’d like them crispy, follow our Frozen chicken wings in air fryer instead or put these when done 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.

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!

How to reheat leftovers

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

You can print recipe below too! Nutritional facts such as calories, saturated fat, etc is listed for the amount I used.