Air-Fryer Buffalo Chicken Drumsticks

Why This Recipe Works

The catch is that, for well-crisped pieces, you must cook wings in batches—even for two servings—which didn't thrill us. To avoid this, we opted for more substantial drumsticks, turning the snack into a main dish, and found we liked the meatier pieces (still with plenty of crispy skin) prepared Buffalo style. We poked holes in the skin to render the fat efficiently and rubbed them with a touch of oil to ensure they crisped up. To build flavor, we coated the drumsticks with a blend of paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper before cooking. For the namesake sauce, we microwaved equal parts melted butter and hot sauce but found the coating to be greasy. Using less butter fixed that problem but did not keep the sauce from sliding off the chicken. Adding just ¼ teaspoon of cornstarch yielded a thicker, glazy sauce that coated the drumsticks perfectly, and a bit of molasses deepened its flavor and brought a hint of sweetness. Instead of preparing a blue cheese sauce, we simply crumbled blue cheese over the drumsticks, which balanced the Buffalo sauce's heat.