If you’re like me, there’s no such this as too many chicken wings. The more chicken wings you can feast on, the better the friends you can become. With the average serving size of chicken wings per person being 1 pound, we need to know how many wings that is.
When uncooked, a single whole chicken wing weighs just about 3.5 ounces. So, you would need between 4 and 5 chicken wings to reach 1 pound.
Chicken wings are usually cut into flats and drumettes before being served on a platter. In this guide, I’ll explain the weights of the different types of chicken wings and how many wings you would need to serve the boys or girls, as well as explain the nutrition facts of chicken wings (spoiler alert: they’re not that healthy).
How Many Chicken Wings Are in a Pound?
Before you weigh chicken wings, you first have to figure out what kind of chicken wing pieces you’re talking about. Chicken wings can be broken down into three parts—the drumette, the flat, and the tip. But if you keep all of the pieces together, then you’ll have a whole chicken wing.
What are these pieces, and how many of them will make a pound? Let’s see.
Drumettes
The drumette is the part of the chicken that connects to the breast. Butchers will usually dislocate the drumette before slicing through the connective tissue, releasing the wing from the rest of the chicken.
As its name suggests, the drumette looks like a tiny chicken drumstick. It has a largeish bone running from the top (where it connected to the breast) to the bottom (where it connected to the flat). A few nibbles are all it takes to remove every scrap of meat from the drumette.
A single drumette weighs around 1 ounce, so roughly 16 of them would get you to 1 pound, which is supposedly enough to serve around 4 people.
Flats
The flat, which is also known as the wingette, is connected by a joint to the drumette. Similar to the drumette, when disjointed from the other parts of the wing, the flat has exposed bone on either end. However, there are two small bones that join together at the ends with cartilage.
Because of the bones’ positions, it takes a few more bites to remove every piece of meat. You should try Chef John’s tried and true method of removing every piece of meat from chicken flats.
Flats typically weigh between 1.5 to 2 ounces uncooked. A pound should yield between 8 and 10 flats.
Tips
While technically a part of the chicken wing, the tips aren’t usually served on a platter of wings. The tip is made almost completely out of skin, tiny bone fragments, and cartilage. Contrary to popular belief, wing tips are edible, but you would end up spitting out more bone than swallowing actual cartilage (which is edible, too) and skin.
A wing tip weighs anywhere from 0.5 to 1 ounce. If you head down to your local grocery store and pick up a 1-pound package, it should hold between 32 and 16 tips. Wing tips are great for making broths since they’re a real challenge to actually eat.
Whole wings
Whole chicken wings usually consist of all 3 parts, though you can call something a “whole wing” without the tip. It’s disjointed from the breast and left whole, so you would have to tear the drumette and flat apart with your hands.
A whole chicken wing usually weighs 3.5 ounces, so a pound yields 4 or 5 wings. Even though this might not sound like a lot, you have to remember that chicken wings are usually broken down to the drumette and flat, so you’re actually getting 8 to 10 pieces in total!
How Many Chicken Wings Do You Need?
Now, to answer the most important question of all: how many chicken wings do you need to prepare per person? I’d like to tell you that an infinite number of wings is ideal, but too much of a good thing is never good!
Most restaurants will offer between 1 and 2 pounds of chicken wings per guest, depending on what the customer ordered. For instance, a chicken wing appetizer will usually contain 4 ounces of wings (usually 2 drumettes and 2 flats). A chicken wing entrée with sides weighs between 1 and 1.5 pounds (10 to 15 pieces). Finally, an entrée consisting of just sauced-up chicken wings can weigh as much as 2 pounds (18 to 20 pieces).
An easy way to calculate how many wings you need is to multiply 6 by 10 wings by the number of guests you have. So, for a tailgating party of 40 people, you would need anywhere from 240 to 400 wings on hand, which is roughly 48 to 100 pounds of wings in total.
Chicken Wing Nutrition Facts
Like many other kinds of incredibly tasty appetizers and entrées, chicken wings aren’t what one would consider “healthy.” To prove this point, let’s take a look at the nutrition facts of chicken drumettes and flats.
Drumette Nutrition Facts
A 4-ounce serving of drumettes includes the following nutrients:
| Nutrient | Value |
| Calories | 250 |
| Protein | 21 g |
| Fat | 18 g |
| Saturated fat | 5 g |
| Cholesterol | 85 mg |
| Calcium | 20 mg |
| Iron | 1.1 mg |
| Potassium | 170 mg |
| Sodium | 50 mcg |
Flat Nutrition Facts
After converting the nutrients of a single flat to 4-ounce servings, you would consume the following nutrients:
| Nutrient | Value |
| Calories | 368 |
| Protein | 34 g |
| Fat | 24 g |
| Saturated fat | N/A |
| Cholesterol | 108 mg |
| Calcium | N/A |
| Iron | 2 mg |
| Potassium | 236 mg |
| Sodium | 51 mcg |
While chicken can be healthy for you, you should stick to lean cuts of meat if you’re on a diet. Of course, if you’re considering downing a pound of chicken wings to begin with, then health probably isn’t your first concern.
Please note that the figures above refer to uncooked chicken drumettes and flats. The calorie and fat counts may skyrocket the moment you dip them into the hot oil.
Leave a Reply