The air fryer has come to be one of the decade’s hottest kitchen gadgets. You might already have recognized how it excels at making delicious and healthy french fries, but that’s only the beginning. Just to get your imagination fired up, consider the different ways your air fryer can turn common chicken into a nutritious treat your whole family will love.
Fried Chicken
One of the most attractive assets of your air fryer is its ability to make foods that are traditionally deep-fried in a way that drastically reduces the oil but leaves it with that crunchy on the outside, juicy on the inside fried flavor. Making air fryer Southern fried chicken should be one of the first things you make with it so that you can put it through its paces. Just let your chicken soak in your favorite marinade for a few hours, dip it in flour and place the pieces in your air fryer basket. You may need to do more than one batch since you should not layer them. Cook at 390°F, flipping chicken midway and spraying dry spots with oil.
Basic Chicken Breasts
On a busy night when you need to get food on the table fast, let your air fryer come to the rescue. Just coat chicken breasts with a mixture of butter, salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika and pepper. Place them in your air fryer basket, making sure to keep breasts from touching each other. Set to 350°F, cook for 15 minutes, turn chicken and cook for an additional 5 to 8 minutes or until juices run clear at the thickest part of the meat.
Tandoori Chicken
If you want to spice up your meal and take a gastronomical journey to the Indian subcontinent, you can make tandoori chicken in your air fryer; you definitely don’t need the classic clay oven that is traditionally used to bake this zesty dish at high heat. Just marinate your chicken breasts or drumsticks in yogurt, lemon juice, ginger, garlic and Indian spices – Kashmiri chili powder will give this dish its traditional bright red color – and cook in the air fryer at 360°F for 10 minutes. Flip, baste with oil and cook for another 5 minutes.
Chicken Parmesan
Who knew that you can have delicious chicken Parmesan in your air fryer, complete with that unmistakable fried taste? You can use a traditional baked chicken Parmesan recipe; just coat the chicken with butter instead of egg before dipping it into the breadcrumbs. Preheat your fryer at 360°F for 3 minutes. Place two chicken breasts in your fryer basket and spray them with oil. Cook for 6 minutes, then add sauce and cheese to the top of each. Cook for 3 minutes or until the cheese is melted, and repeat with any additional chicken breasts.
The great thing about chicken is that it is relatively inexpensive and can be cooked in a seemingly infinite variety of ways. With your air fryer, you can adapt your chicken breast recipes into tasty, low-calorie creations that even the pickiest eaters will enjoy.
