This post may contain affiliate links. See my privacy policy for details.
This Air Fryer Chicken recipe has had rave reviews from readers for years upon years now- and for good reason! This fried chicken uses no oil and has a crispy, delicious skin over tender chicken meat that your whole family will love!
You’ll love this crispy-skinned air fryer chicken, it’s incredibly satisfying and the recipe is super simple! Don’t forget to also try my air fryer fish recipe or for something totally different, my air fryer eggs!
How to Make Crispy Air Fryer Chicken
This recipe has a coating on the chicken that makes the skin crispy and perfect!
- Preheat your air fryer to 390 degrees.
- Whisk together the flour, salt, and the Old Bay.
- Dredge the chicken through the flour mixture, then into the egg, then back into the flour mixture again. Shake off excess flour very well.
- Place the 4 chicken thighs into the bottom of the cooking compartment. Cook for 25 minutes or until the chicken reaches 180 degrees.
- Remove and serve.
Air Fryer Chicken Breasts
Cooking chicken breasts in the fryer is just as easy as cooking any other pieces, except that chicken breast can dry out faster. It’s better to use a batter-like my recipe to seal in the moisture. If you use skin off you can be prepared for dryer chicken, so if you don’t want to eat the skin simply cook the chicken breast with the skin on and then remove it before eating.
- Prepare the skin-on chicken breasts in the batter according to the recipe
- Cook the chicken breast in the Air Fryer for 25 minutes depending on how thick the chicken breasts are.
- If you have large ones they will take longer.
- Chicken breasts should be cooked until 165 °F.
How Long Do I Cook Air Fryer Chicken?
These chicken thighs were done in 25 minutes, but it depends on the thickness of the meat, if you are using skin on or skin off and what cut of chicken you are using.
- Chicken thighs – cook chicken thighs in the Air Fryer for 25-28 minutes until they reach a temperature of 180-185°F. While you can cook them to 165 °F for safety sake, it’s a widely accepted knowledge among professional cooks that cooking chicken thighs to a higher temperature breaks down the meat fibers more and you end up with more tender chicken thighs.
- Chicken breasts– cook chicken breast in the Air Fryer for 25 minutes depending on how thick the chicken breasts are. If you have large ones they will take longer. Chicken breasts should be cooked until 165 °F.
- Chicken tenders – Chicken tenders in the Air Fryer will take only 15-16 minutes to cook, depending on their thickness
The Air fryer cooks your food by circulating hot air around it evenly, so that means that for the cooking to happen properly all the surface of your food needs to be exposed to the hot air. I made three chicken thighs in the air fryer and they were perfectly crispy.
Look at how crispy that skin came out! My son devoured these – as 12-year-olds are wont to do – and asked for more! So while I would only place 4 small chicken thighs in the air fryer, this would also work with chicken wings!
The air fryer can only handle a certain capacity – see the manual- so it makes only a small meal, say for two people. You can stack the chicken on its side if you want, just make sure that there is lots of surface area to cook.
What I really loved about this air fryer chicken is that I used no grease at all. None. I put the chicken in there and it cooked up beautifully without a drop of grease added.
The container itself is SO easy to clean. As you can see, you can fit another chicken thigh or random piece of chicken in there, but you want to make sure that you follow the instructions as to the amount of meat that you can place in there. You simply place the food into this little basket and away you go! It’s so easy!
Tips and Tricks
- Some readers put a small bit of water in the bottom of their Air Fryer to prevent smoking, you can try this at your own risk! Apparently putting a little water in the container under the basket can keep the grease from the food from causing smoke.
- Other readers have sprayed the chicken with cooking spray with good results, but I don’t usually bother as the chicken skin has enough grease in it
- If you are getting a floury skin, then definitely use the cooking spray on the chicken. That means that the flour isn’t absorbing into your egg layer and that you didn’t have enough moisture.
Recipe Video
Some More Recipes for You to Try:
- Butter Roasted Chicken – The Only Roast Chicken Recipe You’ll Ever Need Again.
- Better-Than-A-Restaurant Rosemary Lemon Butter Chicken
- Creamy Garlic Parmesan Chicken & Potatoes
- Slow Cooker Chicken Stew
- How To Make Homemade Cajun Seasoning
- Baba Ganoush
This recipe uses one of my very favorite seasonings in the world: Old Bay Seasoning. It’s a very East Coast spice mix ( I was SO happy to have it in New Jersey when we visited) but this Alberta girl has been using it for years already. Mike and I will simply sprinkle Old Bay onto our chicken drumsticks and roast them thusly, with nothing else on it. You could easily do the same with the chicken drumsticks in the Phillips Airfryer as well if you want a gluten-free option!
So, who has an air fryer, and what do you think about it? Who has been wanting to try an Air fryer as I have? Stay tuned for two more posts where I delve into this appliance and really try it out!
Love you more than chocolate,
Karlynn
PIN THIS RECIPE to your DINNER RECIPES Boards and Remember to FOLLOW ME ON PINTEREST!
Thanks to ads on this website, readers of The Kitchen Magpie are now sponsoring 2 families a month through the Edmonton Food Bank. Learn how you can help here.
Learn to cook like the Kitchen Magpie
Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky
A Modern Baker’s Guide to Old-Fashioned Desserts
The Prairie Table
Suppers, Potlucks & Socials: Crowd-Pleasing Recipes to Bring People Together
Subscribe to The Kitchen Magpie on YouTube
One click and you'll get notified of new videos added to our YouTube account!
Subscribe on YouTube
Air Fryer Fried Chicken
- Prep Time
- 4 minutes
- Cook Time
- 25 minutes
- Total Time
- 29 minutes
- Course
- Main Course
- Cuisine
- Chicken
- Servings
- 4
- Calories
- 327
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 egg beaten
- 4 small chicken thighs skin on
- 1 1/2 tablespoons Old Bay Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon seasoning salt
- cooking spray if desired
Instructions
- Pre-heat the Air Fryer to 390 degrees.
- Whisk together the flour, salt and the Old Bay.
- Dredge the chicken through the flour mixture, then into the egg, then back into the flour mixture again. Shake off excess flour very well. If you want to, you can spray the chicken with cooking spray lightly at this point, but I don't bother.
- Place the 4 chicken thighs into the bottom of the AirFryer cooking compartment. Cook for 25 minutes or until the chicken reaches 180 degrees.
- Remove and serve.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Made this recipe?
Share a photo of what you made on Instagram or Facebook and tag me @thekitchenmagpie or hashtag it #thekitchenmagpie.
Please rate this recipe in the comments below to help out your fellow cooks!
Deb says
Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe! I made this for dinner and it’s juicy, crispy, and the way I’ll cook my fried chicken going forward. I cooked chicken breasts and one was larger than the others so I set the timer for 30 minutes and kept on top of things, checking the inner temperature several time with my meat thermometer. I’m already looking forward to the leftover chicken that’s going into sandwiches tomorrow. The seasoning mix was great too. I added my own Cajun spice mix instead of the seasoned salt mix. Tasty, juicy, crunchy outside… yummmmmm!
Kathy says
So delicious and easy to make! A keeper!!
Adam says
Will make again. Super easy. So good. I made a double batch and the last few I did a final roll in some crunched up voodoo kettle chips. Added a nice bit of crunch.
Southern bell says
This sounds like face book instead of Pinterest!!!
Karen says
I really liked this recipe. I started out with a different recipe as I marinated the chicken in buttermilk, garlic and S&P. I then decided to use my air fryer instead and looked up recipes and found this … so … it turned out yummy!!
Laurie says
I took Jeff’s comment as referring to himself and making a joke. I didn’t take it as a comment on the author of the recipe.
Vickie says
New to using an air fryer. Tried this recipe & it was delicious. Juicy & crispy. My husband gave it a big thumbs up. Had no trouble finding Old Bay seasoning in the midwest. Sometimes you might just check in the seafood dept. Also made your seasoned salt to use.
Stephanie Taylor says
Made this tonight but with potato starch instead of flour for my son who is celiac. it was amazing and turned out so much better than I expected. He wants it every night now.
I added some garlic powder and a bunch of seasoned salt and the flavor was great and the chicken was nice and juicy
Stephanie Taylor says
Made this tonight but with potato starch instead of flour for my son who is celiac. it was amazing and turned out so much better than I expected. He wants it every night now
Tim says
In what world would 4 chicken thighs feed four people (4 servings) LOL! Good recipe
Muriel White says
I googled recipe for ideas for air fryer fried chicken and saw this so tried it.
My pkg of thighs had five. I followed your recipe but not having old bay seasoning I used Dash, onion and garlic powder.
After reading some reviews I did turn them over half way through. I am new at using the air fryer so learning as I go along. (Have had one for two years lol). I use the liners for easy clean up. ***FYI my son learned the hard way. DO NOT put liner in while pre heating as it catches on fire.
Bottom line they were very juicy but needs more flavor.
Sarah says
How can you give a three star rating saying the recipe doesn’t have enough flavor when you didn’t follow the recipe? You literally didn’t use the seasoning the recipe calls for.
Nadine says
two thumbs up from my husband. I didn’t have old bay spice first time I’ve heard of it, will have to get some. Instead I used 1/2tbs of Montreal Chicken Seasoning and 1tbs of Clubhouse Garlic and Herbs. Had skinless boneless chicken thighs cooked for 27mins at 390 flipped chicken 3 times. Chicken was perfectly cooked tender and juicy. Thank you, first time trying fried chicken in the air fryer. As husband said this is now added to one of my go to meals. Went great with Thanksgiving dinner left overs.
Jeff says
Never heard of old bay? You call yourself a cook? Maybe not.
Lauren says
Seriously?! It’s a super popular seasoning, especially on the east coast. Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean this person can’t cook!? get a group dude and deal with your own crap instead of being an online bully.
Sandy says
How rude, and ignorant. Not everyone lives in your little world. It is really only popular in the south, I know many of you think the world revolves around you but it so much does not.
South sucks and their food sucks. Southern food= overcooked on outside, raw in the inside, sugar coated everything, turning baked beans into candy, grits – oh boy just what I wanted to eat, sand, I think salt and sugar are the only “spices”, oh yum – fried snot – okra. Old Bay sucks. If you use it, you cannot cook without someone holding your hand how to spice things up. Sheep. Funny coming from the most uncultured group – southerners.
Also, she never claimed she could cook.
Debra says
I thought we were merely talking about a recipe here. Did the Old Bay hater even try the recipe? However, congratulations, you did manage to express the ugliest comments. Do you get paid to be a troll? Or, maybe you just needed to go off on a righteous rant, show your culinary ignorance and be the biggest bully.
On a more important note, this recipe is an absolute winner!
Have a sun-shiny day y’all!
Denise Allison says
Followed the recipe to the letter, but for some reason my chicken came out still covered in flour. Not a lot, but enough to where we felt weird about the chicken. Ended up tossing it & just frying chicken the old fashioned way. I’ll try again another time, maybe using less flour
Mary says
Wow, talk about the pot calling the kettle black…Who is the rude one here Sandy?? Why would you come on here and attempt to belittle at least 30% of the country?? I guess you think all we eat in the South is fried chicken, okra, and grits..? That would be like Southerners assuming that all Northerners/New Yorkers just eat hot dogs from carts, pizza, and grinders. How small-minded you are in YOUR little world. Not all Southerners are “ignorant”, by the way, quite far from it. Maybe the person that cooked you some Southern food wasn’t very good at it?? Additionally, we have plenty of culture in the South, thank you very much. Have you ever been to Asheville (nick-named the Paris of the South), Raleigh, Atlanta, New Orleans, Charleston, etc?? LOTS of museums, Broadway shows, fine dining establishments galore, etc. Just FYI, Old Bay is not just for Southern cooks. Having lived all over the country, I can confidently say that plenty of Northerners & people in the western states use it as well. Try being a little more open-minded. Bless your heart.
michael small says
wow….a bunch of crybaby ignorant adolescents,,,grow the hell up and act your age and not your shoe size….punks.
Mary says
Wow, talk about the pot calling the kettle black…Who is the rude one here Sandy?? Why would you come on here and attempt to belittle at least 30% of the country?? I guess you think all we eat in the South is fried chicken, okra, and grits..? That would be like Southerners assuming that all Northerners/New Yorkers just eat hot dogs from carts, pizza, and grinders. How small-minded you are in YOUR little world. Not all Southerners are “ignorant”, by the way, quite far from it. Maybe the person that cooked you some Southern food wasn’t very good at it?? Additionally, we have plenty of culture in the South, thank you very much. Have you ever been to Asheville (nick-named the Paris of the South), Raleigh, Atlanta, New Orleans, Charleston, etc?? LOTS of museums, Broadway shows, fine dining establishments galore, etc. Just FYI, Old Bay is not just for Southern cooks. Having lived all over the country, I can confidently say that plenty of Northerners & people in the western states use it as well. Try being a little more open-minded. Bless your heart.
Susan says
Thank you for your reply to Sandy, with the proper restraint and logic. Nice touch, “bless your heart”!