Cilantro and Garlic Chicken Wings, A Thai Classic for Every Occasion
These cilantro and garlic chicken wings are one of those recipes that earn their place at every kind of table. An easy side for a midweek dinner, a centrepiece for a weekend BBQ, or part of a wider Thai feast. They work in every context and are popular with the whole family because they carry real flavor without any heat. I made these as part of our Thai feast to celebrate Songkran, Thai New Year, and they were gone before anything else on the table.
The spice, if you want it, comes from the dipping sauce. I paired these with sweet chili sauce, or a Nam Ajad. The light, vinegar-based cucumber relish works beautifully alongside them too - you can find the recipe on our Chicken Satay page.
One ingredient worth seeking out is fresh cilantro root. It is earthier and more concentrated than the leaves, and it is what gives this recipe its distinctive depth. Asian supermarkets will usually stock it. If you cannot find it, cilantro stalks and leaves will work as a substitute, though the flavor will be a little lighter.
The Story Behind Cilantro and Garlic Chicken Wings
Garlic and cilantro chicken wings, known in Thailand as Peek Gai Tod Kratiem (ปีกไก่ทอดกระเทียม), are one of the most beloved street food dishes in Thai cuisine. You will find variations of this dish at roadside stalls, night markets, and family-run restaurants across the country, from Bangkok's Chatuchak Market to the quieter temple towns of Chiang Mai. It is the kind of dish that feels at home everywhere, a casual snack, a shared starter, or part of a wider Thai spread.
The combination of garlic, cilantro root, and black pepper is one of the most fundamental flavor pairings in Thai cooking. Long before lemongrass, galangal, and chili became the internationally recognized face of Thai cuisine, home cooks were pounding this trio together as the base for marinades, soups, and stir-fries. It predates the widespread use of chili in Thailand entirely. In many ways, these wings represent Thai cooking in its most ancient and grounded form.
Chicken wings became a street food staple because they are affordable, full of flavor, and cook quickly over high heat. Marinated for a few hours and fried or grilled to order, they develop a caramelised exterior while staying tender inside. One of those combinations that is straightforward to achieve but consistently impressive to eat.
What Makes These Wings So Good
The appeal of this recipe is in its simplicity. A small number of honest ingredients, each one doing something specific.
Cilantro root is the ingredient most people overlook. Thai cooking has always prized the root over the leaves, it is more robust, more concentrated, and holds its character when subjected to the heat of a deep fryer or open flame. It gives the wings a warm, herby depth that the leaves alone cannot replicate. Keep the garlic skin on when you pound it into the paste, the skin adds flavor and, once fried, creates those crispy, papery bits that cling to the coating and are arguably the best part of the whole wing.
Black pepper ties everything together. It was the original source of heat in Thai cooking before chili arrived, and its earthy warmth is a natural counterpoint to the freshness of the cilantro.
Fish sauce and palm sugar do what they always do in Thai cooking. The fish sauce adds savoury depth without making the dish taste of the sea. The palm sugar softens it and helps the marinade caramelise during frying, giving the wings their deep golden color.
Tempura flour finishes the job with a light, crisp coating that protects the meat and seals in the marinade without overwhelming the flavor beneath. It is not a heavy batter, just enough of a crust to give you that first satisfying bite.
Choosing Your Wings
Fresh wings will always give a better result than frozen. The skin crisps more evenly and the meat stays juicier. If you are using frozen, make sure they are fully defrosted and thoroughly patted dry before marinating, any surface moisture will prevent the marinade from adhering and can cause dangerous oil splashes when frying.
Whole wings work well, or ask your butcher to separate them into drumettes and flats. The wing tip is often left on in Thai cooking and is considered a delicacy, but removing it is equally fine. Both cuts fry at the same rate and give you slightly different textures, which makes a plate of mixed pieces more interesting to eat.
Cooking Tips
Oil temperature is everything. You are aiming for 175–180°C. Too cool and the wings absorb excess oil and turn heavy. Too hot and the coating burns before the meat is cooked through. If you do not have a thermometer, drop a small pinch of tempura flour into the oil, it should sizzle and rise immediately. A deep, heavy-bottomed wok filled two thirds with oil is the traditional approach and gives the wings room to move freely.
Fry in batches of 4–5 wings. Adding too many at once drops the oil temperature and results in a pale, soft coating rather than a crisp one. Drain on a rack or kitchen paper after each batch to keep the crust firm.
For the BBQ, skip the tempura flour entirely and grill the marinated wings directly over medium-high heat for 25–30 minutes, turning regularly. The palm sugar in the marinade caramelises beautifully over the coals and the smoke adds a dimension that the fryer cannot replicate. Make sure the wings reach an internal temperature of 74°C before serving.
Preparation
Separate the garlic cloves from the bulb and peel away the outer papery skin, trimming the hard ends. Leave the thin inner skin on each clove. In a pestle and mortar, pound the garlic together with the black pepper and cilantro root until you have a rough, chunky paste, the garlic well crushed and the cilantro root broken down but still with some texture. This is not a smooth paste. The roughness is what clings to the wings and chars slightly during frying.
Add the palm sugar and fish sauce to a mixing bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the garlic and cilantro paste and mix well to combine.
Add the chicken wings and massage the marinade thoroughly into every piece using your hands, making sure each wing is well coated on all sides. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Overnight will give a deeper, more developed flavor if you have the time.
Cooking Method
Pour vegetable oil into a wok until two thirds full and heat over high heat to around 175–180°C. Test with a pinch of tempura flour, if it sizzles and rises immediately, the oil is ready.
Pour the tempura flour into a separate bowl. Remove the wings from the marinade one at a time and coat each one thoroughly, pressing the flour gently to adhere on both sides.
Carefully lower 4–5 wings into the hot oil at a time. Fry for around 10 minutes, turning once or twice, until deep golden brown and cooked through. Remove and drain on kitchen paper. Repeat in batches until all wings are cooked.
Serve immediately with sweet chili dipping sauce and sticky rice, garnished with fresh cilantro leaves and sliced red chili.
Perfect for BBQ Season
One of the things that makes this recipe particularly versatile is that it works just as well over a grill as it does in a fryer. The same marinade, the same wings, two completely different results, and both worth making depending on the occasion.
Deep frying gives you that classic Thai street food finish. The tempura coating shatters on first bite, the garlic and cilantro paste crisps into the crust, and the whole thing has that satisfying crunch that is hard to achieve any other way. It is the version to make when you want something that tastes like it came straight from a Bangkok night market stall.
The BBQ version takes things in a different direction. Without the flour coating, the marinade sits directly on the skin and caramelises over the heat of the grill. The palm sugar chars slightly at the edges and the garlic deepens in a way that is unique to cooking over direct heat. On a charcoal grill, the smoke adds an extra dimension that makes the wings taste genuinely complex for something so straightforward to prepare. A gas grill gives you more control over the temperature and produces a cleaner, more consistent result, the caramelisation is still there, just without the smokiness. Both are excellent and the choice comes down to what you have available.
Either way, the skin crisps differently to the fried version. Less shattering crunch, more of a sticky, lacquered finish that pulls cleanly from the bone.
Both are worth having in your repertoire. A warm evening with friends around the grill is the natural home for the BBQ version, they are the kind of wings that disappear quickly and always prompt someone to ask for the recipe. The deep-fried version suits a bigger spread, alongside sticky rice, a bowl of Nam Ajad, and whatever else is on the table.
The only real rule is that the marinade needs time. An hour minimum, overnight if you can manage it. Everything else adapts to however you want to cook them.
Final Thought
These wings remind me why my grandmother never wrote down a recipe, even though she made them dozens of times. Because the magic isn't in the exact measurements, it's in understanding what each ingredient does and why it matters. The garlic and cilantro are pounded together rough and chunky so they cling to the chicken and char slightly as it fries, creating depth in that golden crust. The black pepper is there because it was the original heat in Thai cooking, long before chili arrived. The fish sauce is quiet, adding savory backbone without tasting fishy. These are the building blocks of Thai home cooking, the foundations that everything else is built on.
In America, Thai food has travelled so far from its roots that it's easy to forget what it actually tastes like when someone who grew up cooking it makes it at home. Not spicy for spicy's sake. Not overly sauced. Just honest flavor, the kind that makes you want another wing before the first one is finished. These work as a weeknight dinner, a game-day appetizer, or the opening course of something bigger. They're the kind of recipe that teaches you confidence in the kitchen, once you understand why the method works, you'll find yourself using the same technique for fish, for beef, for vegetables.
This is street food that became a family staple, and now it can become yours too. Seek out fresh cilantro root, keep the garlic skins on, don't skip the rough pounding, these small choices make the difference between good chicken wings and the kind you'll find yourself craving weeks later.
Cilantro and Garlic Chicken Wings
- 1 kg chicken wings
- — Fresh cilantro root ((or cilantro stems))
- 1 whole garlic bulb (cloves separated)
- 5 tbsp fish sauce
- 1.5 tbsp palm sugar
- 1 tsp black pepper, whole or powdered
- 80 g tempura flour
- — Vegetable oil for deep frying (enough to fill your wok two thirds full)
