Those of us who own one know it: The air fryer’s specific magical power is in imitating foods you would normally fry but without the actual frying part.
Making frozen foods such as tater tots and chicken tenders taste and feel like they actually got deep fried, and restoring fried takeout items like mozzarella sticks and onion rings to their former glory is where the air fryer really shines. An air fryer has myriad other uses, but its capacity with fried items alone is worth the price.
But can you actually make fried food from scratch in an air fryer? With “fryer” in its very name, can an air fryer actually live up to its promise and produce convincing, homemade fried chicken?
“You can get a great fried texture from making fried chicken in the air fryer,” said Yvette Ervin, owner and head chef of Brooklyn Chckn ‘N’ Lbstr. “It won’t be exactly the same consistency as it would from being deep fried in oil, however, it will still be really crispy and is a healthier alternative to conventional fried chicken.”
As a chef who has staked her claim on fried foods, Ervin shared her best practices when it comes to making fried chicken in an air fryer. I went ahead and tried them.
How does an air fryer work?
Air fryers aren’t complicated machines. Just traditional convection heat supercharged by a simple fan.
Deep frying and air fryer cooking are both considered dry heat cooking methods. Both achieve results via 360 degrees of contact with the source of heat. In a deep fry situation, it’s oil, and in an air fryer it’s — you guessed it — air. “An air fryer uses convection, like a convection oven, and it’s the air circulation that cooks the food and transforms it without using any type of trans oil or direct contact heat,” said Ervin.
While technically not frying, radiant heat from preheating the air fryer gets moved via a circulating fan in an enclosed space, cooking rapidly while creating an atmosphere that can effectively crisp skin or brown any coating on the food in a way that produces fry-like results.
Read more: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Air Fryers
Air fryer chicken considerations
Classic fried chicken calls for bone-in, skin-on pieces but you can make with boneless if you prefer.
When it comes to making air fryer fried chicken from scratch, first, consider the chicken. While white and dark meat are individual preferences, as are bone-in chicken versus boneless tenders, different cuts require different approaches.
“The air fryer is mainly meant for quick, simple meals that you could just set to go and forget about it,” said Ervin. “Boneless will cook faster, and will also get an evenly crispy texture from the air fryer because of its uniform thickness.”
“Larger pieces of bone-in chicken tend to take more time, and they also need more attention,” Ervin added. This may involve flipping them during the cooking process, and checking for doneness.
Bone-in chicken retains more flavor and juiciness during the cooking process, however, while boneless chicken can be easier to overcook. Dark meat contains more fat than does white meat; when released during cooking, it can add an additional oil element to crisp up the skin.
Preparing the chicken
The pieces should be uniform in size.
Whatever chicken you’re working with, “the cooking time is going to vary if you have pieces of different sizes,” said Ervin. You can do yourself a favor by cutting them into pieces of similar size, especially with bone-in chicken.
Whereas with deep frying you are able to observe the cook in progress and remove smaller pieces as they’re ready, most air fryers don’t have windows to see what’s happening inside the fryer. You can cut breasts and some thighs in half to match smaller pieces like wings and drumsticks. (Kitchen shears are a great way to accomplish this.)
The chicken should also be as dry as possible to start, to better adhere to the coating, and to not create opportunities for steam during the cooking process, which impedes the ability to get the exterior crispy or crunchy.
The coating is key
My full fried-chicken dredge setup.
You can air fry chicken with skinless or skin-on pieces. But without any type of coating, “it’s not really fried chicken,” said Ervin, “but maybe more like roasted, or rotisserie chicken.” It’s still a potentially excellent outcome in an air fryer, but it doesn’t qualify as fried.
“You want a flour or a batter, or even a fish fry coating, because it will make the item crispy and feel like fried chicken,” said Ervin.
An argument can be made for skin-on chicken wings, which are typically deep fried without a coating, (note: without a coating) before they’re tossed in the traditional hot sauce mixture, and the air fryer also excels at this.
Sourcing various recipes for air fryer fried chicken, there are two schools of thought as respects the coating. The first involves a simple milk or buttermilk brine, and a single dunking in dry coating such as that made with flour, cornstarch, cornmeal, breadcrumbs, or a combination of those things. Cornstarch both absorbs moisture and prevents gluten development in flour, promoting a crispy outcome.
Leave enough space so that pieces don’t steam.
The second method is more aligned with deep fried chicken, where the chicken gets coated with flour or a flour-based seasoning mixture, dunked in egg or milk, and coated with flour again. This will create a thicker, fried-like coating on the chicken, whereas the first method produces more of a thin crust, or an extension of the skin.
In either case, “you don’t want to have it wet,” said Ervin. While a deep fryer can handle coatings such as a slightly fluid beer batter, the air fryer isn’t appropriate for that style.
Just a touch of oil
An inexpensive oil sprayer will come in handy when making air fryer fried chicken.
The final step is a light coating of oil, to make sure any dry flour isn’t exposed on the surface of the chicken. Some fat will be released from the meat itself and help hydrate the flour during the cooking process, but you’ll need just enough oil to moisten the coating. Ervin suggests olive oil or grapeseed oil, which can be carefully brushed on, or is best dispensed in a spray or pump bottle.
This is what separates fried chicken from air fryer fried chicken, as there’s far less fat to be absorbed by the coating, resulting in a fried-like exterior with a crispy coating but with a much healthier outcome.
The verdict on air fryer fried chicken
Don’t forget to to flip the bird halfway through.
Using all the available wisdom, I swung for the fences with bone-in, skin-on chicken, cut to pieces of a similar size, and used a coating similar to that of a deep fried chicken. The pieces were dredged in a flour mixture containing both flour and cornstarch, dipped in an egg wash spiked with Tabasco, and coated a final time in the flour mixture.
What I would recommend is to spritz oil on all sides of the chicken before putting the pieces in the air fryer, or to brush some oil on the air fryer basket itself to prevent it from sticking. Following the online recipe I sourced, I sprayed the top, and again once the pieces were flipped, but some of the coating got left behind.
After about 8 minutes on each side, the outcome was a convincing facsimile of fried chicken, without any of the hassle of deep frying. No deep fryer smell, no oil to discard, just a tasty, crunchy, healthier alternative to the real thing.
Pretty good for under 25 minutes.
For more air fryer favorites, see how we made an entire chicken and 10-minute salmon in the countertop cooker.
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