Take the restaurant favorite lemon pepper chicken wings to next level by whipping up your own lemon pepper seasoning at home in a jiffy!
After sharing ample chicken wings recipe, I was under the impression that I surely have run out of wings recipes! I was so utterly wrong! After finding this scrumptious looking lemon pepper chicken wings recipe on pinterest, I was simply overjoyed!
But sadly that only lasted for couple of minutes as I was very sure that I won’t be able to get the store-bought lemon pepper seasoning in India which every recipe I checked was using!
I didn’t even bother to check on Amazon to make sure if my assumption was even correct; I would have been proven wrong had I checked! (I only discovered that it is very much available days after making it on my own! But I don’t regret!)
Anyways, after few minutes of sulking, my inquisitive instinct took over and started to look if this killer seasoning can be made at home! And voila! Thanks to the channel Divas can cook on Youtube, I got a guaranteed recipe to make lemon pepper seasoning at home!
And guess what? It turned out amazingly flavorful and became an instant favorite chicken wings beating all my other wings recipes that I had made earlier!
Chicken wings have become our go-to chicken snacks; even more so when we plan to chill at home on a weekend. Some may find eating wings messy because of the bones, but we love them to the core which is why we don’t mind that little inconvenience!
Best thing about chicken wings is that you can play around with the flavors as much as you like and there is barely any chance to mess it up!
You can chose to bake them or fry them; both ways they will turn out to be super-awesome! Today I decided to fry up my lemon pepper chicken wings.
You can definitely chose to bake them if you feel like, but somehow I was craving for fried chicken today and hence these crispy fried chicken wings materialized.
And with the crazy-delicious homemade lemon pepper seasoning sprinkled on top, you will thank yourself (and hopefully me too!) for making these!
Making lemon pepper seasoning will surely take some extra time but according to my opinion it’s all worth it. It’s true that I never have had the chance to use the store-bought seasoning yet, so I can’t rightfully compare between homemade and store-bought version.
But I was honestly very happy with the homemade result. I had always loved to make things from scratch and this lemon pepper chicken wings gave me the right opportunity to do so which eventually left me with that fantastic sense of accomplishment at the end!
If you love cooking, you will surely understand that feeling and will be able to relate with me.
Coming back to the recipe of the day, these lemon pepper chicken wings are not only addictive due to the lemon pepper seasoning, but also because of the incredible lemon butter sauce which glazes the chicken wings so exquisitely that it’s beyond any description! You gotta try it to believe it!
Only thing you need to take care of while planning to make these lemon pepper chicken wings using homemade lemon pepper seasoning is that the lemons must be very fresh and preferably organic.
This is because you will primarily be using the zest of the lemons to make your seasoning. While grating the lemons for lemon zest, make sure to grate only the yellow part and not the white part underneath as that will be bitter in taste.
Using a Microplane zester is the best bet for effectively zesting lemons; if you can get your hands on one, then nothing like it! Since this lemon pepper seasoning is a dry mix of spices, you can make a bigger batch and keep it handy.
The amount of ingredients mentioned in this recipe for lemon pepper seasoning will make you enough for about 1.5 lbs/750 gms of chicken wings.
You may double it up for future storage which I am sure you will use up pretty soon as these lemon pepper chicken wings are too tempting not to make them repeatedly!
- Chicken wings – 750 gms, washed and dried thoroughly
- Olive oil – 2 tbsp
- All-purpose flour – ½ cup
- Lemon pepper seasoning – ½ tsp + ½ tsp
- Lemons – 6, large
- Freshly crushed black pepper – 1 tsp
- Salt – 1 tsp
- Garlic powder – ½ tsp
- Onion powder – ½ tsp
- Unsalted butter – 4 tbsp
- Freshly crushed black pepper – ¼ tsp
- Salt – ¼ tsp
- Garlic powder – ¼ tsp
- Onion powder – ¼ tsp
- Lemon juice – 2 tbsp
- Preheat your oven to 75 C / 170 F. While the oven is preheating, zest all the lemons. Spread the lemon zest on a baking pan in a single layer.
- Bake the lemon zest in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until they become dry. Crush the dried lemon zest with your fingers to make coarse powder like texture.
- Take the dried lemon zest in a small bowl and add garlic powder, onion powder, salt & pepper. Give a good mix using a fork and your lemon pepper seasoning is ready. Set it aside.
- Take the washed and dried chicken wings in a bowl and drizzle the olive oil on them. Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning on top and toss everything well to coat each chicken wing.
- Mix the all-purpose flour and about half a teaspoon of lemon pepper seasoning in a shallow dish or paper bag.
- Drop the chicken wings on seasoned flour and toss until each piece is lightly coated with flour. Place the coated wings on a plate and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate them for at least for 30 minutes or until ready to fry.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a deep frying pan. Once the oil is very hot, reduce the flame and tip in the coated chicken wings into hot oil.
- Fry the chicken wings on medium heat until golden brown, about 10 minutes, flipping them over in between. You may need to fry the wings in batches depending on the size of your frying pan.
- Once the wings turn golden brown, take them out and place on a cooling rack with paper towels underneath to let the excess oil drip off.
- After all the wings are fried, make lemon butter sauce. Melt the unsalted butter in a large pot. Add onion powder, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Give a good mix.
- Then reduce the flame to minimum and stir in the lemon juice into the butter mixture while stirring continuously. Your lemon butter sauce is ready.
- Drop the fried chicken wings into the lemon butter sauce and toss the hot wings until coated thoroughly on all sides.
- Take out the glazed wings and place on a cooling rack or serving platter and immediately sprinkle with the remaining lemon pepper seasoning on the top. Flip them over and sprinkle the seasoning on the other side too.
- Make sure to sprinkle the seasoning while the wings are hot as the dry seasoning will stick to the wings immediately. Your delicious lemon pepper chicken wings are ready! Garnish with freshly chopped parsley and enjoy!
Very very delicious recipe. Thanks for sharing:)