Chicken Nuggets In An Air Fryer

How To Make Homemade Chicken Nuggets In The Air Fryer

• In a medium bowl marinate the chicken pieces with buttermilk, salt and pepper. Marinate for at least 30 minutes.

• Prepare the stations: In a small bowl place the cornstarch and keep it aside. In another bowl whisk the eggs with a fork and keep it aside. In a plate combine flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt and pepper. Mix everything together and keep it aside.

• Coat the chicken: First dredge the marinated chicken in cornstarch, then in egg mixture and finally in the flour mixture. Coat the chicken pieces evenly and shake the excess flour if any. Repeat the same with the remaining chicken pieces and place them on the prepared baking sheet.
• Prepare the equipment: Preheat the air fryer to 390 degrees F. Spray the air fryer basket with cooking spray.

• Cook the chicken: Arrange the chicken pieces in a single layer in the air fryer basket and top with cooking spray again. Air fry for 10-12 minutes until they turn crispy and golden. Flip the chicken halfway through until it is completely cooked.
• Garnish and serve: Garnish the popcorn chicken with fresh parsley and serve with ranch or ketchup.

Frozen Chicken Nugget Air Frying Tips

Shake your fryer basket. If cooking air fryer frozen chicken nuggets in a large batch, shake halfway through cooking so it cooks evenly on all sides.

No need to defrost frozen nuggets. The air fryer allows you to cook frozen food instantly.

Add a few more minutes to your cooking time if the nuggets arent crispy enough after 8-10 minutes.

Keep leftovers in an airtight container inside your fridge. They stay for up to 2-3 days when stored properly.

Reheat the nuggets in your air fryer! The air fryer crisps it up straight from your fridge. Just like new!

Frozen Chicken Nuggets In Airfryer

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

If you have children or ever were one, you understand the pleasure of a great-tasting chicken nugget, preferably one that comes in amazing shapeslike dinosaurs. The struggle I always have with chicken nuggets isnt about the shape or the lack of diversity it brings to the menu, but rather, the texture of a soggy, rubbery microwaved chicken nugget. However, when you cook frozen chicken nuggets in the air fryer, you can deliver crisp, great-tasting nuggets every time.

You May Like: Tyson Buffalo Chicken Strips Air Fryer

How Long To Cook Chicken Nuggets In Air Fryer

To make frozen chicken nuggets in the air fryer, youll need 5-10 minutes, depending on the brand youre cooking. Just make sure you place frozen chicken nuggets in a single layer in your air fryer basket so they can cook evenly. Then serve with your favorite sauce. You can even squeeze a little lemon juice on them.

You can also use this cooking time for most brands of veggie nuggets and chicken tenders.

Add The Nuggets In The Air Fryer

Now take out the air fryer basket. Be careful as it will be pretty hot. Put it on a temperature-resistant surface. Now take out the chicken nuggets from the freezer and put them in the basket. Organize them in a single layer to assure even and consistent cooking. Dont add much of the chicken nuggets or dont put them on one another as this can cause uneven cooking.

If you have many of the nuggets to prepare, cook them in a smaller batch for the best result. You may also utilize an air fryer rack that allows you to stack the food inside the machine. This allows you to cook a lot of food without blocking air circulation. Some air fryers nowadays arrive with the rack while others require purchasing it separately.

Don’t Miss: How Long To Cook Chicken Thighs Oven

Chicken Nuggets For Any Day Of The Week

We often use Kirkwoods Dinosaur shaped nuggets, which are my four-year-old sons favorite. We purchase them by the box at our neighborhood Aldi for around $6.99. These nuggets, which come in T-Rex, Triceratops, and Apatosaurus shapes, taste great, and they are relatively healthy, as far as chicken nuggets go.

In the microwave, chicken nuggets take around a minute to heat up, which is convenient, but the texture of most frozen-to-microwave products really disappoints me. Its definitely worth the extra twelve minutes to prep these in the air fryer, which is still 8-10 minutes faster than baking them in the oven, not including the time it takes for your oven to preheat. Cooking frozen chicken nuggets in the air fryer will never be a disappointment.

Using an air fryer is also a fast, easy way to reheat restaurant chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, or french fries your little one couldnt finish while you were eating out. When it comes to texture and taste, an air fryer beats a microwave any day.

Note: If you are making plant-based vegan nuggets, I suggest 380° F | 180° C for 10 minutes. Using a food thermometer, they above the suggested 160° F | 71° C.

Did You Make This Recipe

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on

Cuisine:Category:

Did you make this recipe? Id love your feedback! Please let me know by leaving a comment or review below or snap a photo and share on .

Some of the links above are affiliate links, which pay me a small commission for my referral at no extra cost to you! I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Thank you for supporting kitchenathoskins.com

All contents and images are my original work, unless and otherwise mentioned. Please do not use my recipes or images without linking back to www.kitchenathoskins.com. If you wish to republish a recipe, please rewrite in your own words and dont forget to include a link back to the original recipe.

Friday 20th of August 2021

Can you freeze and reheat these?

Tuesday 24th of August 2021

Hi Dan, Absolutely! Place cooked and cooled nuggets in a zip lock bag, seal and freeze for up to a month. To reheat – place frozen chicken nuggets in a pre heated 400°F air fryer basket and cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Turn over and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes or until heated through.Hope it helps – Apologies for a late reply, Maria

Don’t Miss: Jack In The Box Popcorn Chicken

How Long Do You Cook 10 Chicken Nuggets In An Air Fryer

10 chicken nuggets cooked in an air fryer typically take between 8-10 minutes to cook. Preheat your air fryer to 400 degrees F before adding the chicken nuggets. They should be cooked until they reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. To keep them from drying out, you may need to flip them over halfway through cooking. Let them rest for a minute or two after cooking before serving.

What Should You Serve With Air Fryer Chicken Nuggets

While the nuggets will come out crispy and tasting great without anything else needed, you may want to add some sauces to really accentuate the crispiness and flavor of the nuggets.

The most common sauces people will use with chicken nuggets are sweet and sour sauce, honey mustard, ranch, and BBQ sauce. If youre serving chicken nuggets to a group of people, you may want to offer a few different sauces.

Try different sauces with your chicken nuggets to see what works best for air fryer nuggets or particular brands of nuggets, if youre trying something new.

What side should you serve with chicken nuggets? Theyre traditionally served with fries, but theres all sorts of things that chicken nuggets go very well with.

They could be part of a larger, healthy meal, paired with just about any kind of pasta- particularly cheesy pasta. Serve chicken nuggets with coleslaw, a salad, beans, veggies, or waffles.

Be careful about having something too heavy with chicken nuggets, as they can already be pretty heavy and are packed with carbs on their own. While chicken and waffles are a popular combination, the combined heaviness of these two foods may be a bit much for some people.

Most people wont add bread or another meat to a meal that already includes chicken nuggets, but if youre feeling adventurous, you can add shrimp and grits for a southern United States specialty.

You May Like: Recipe For Chicken Kabobs On Grill

How To Make Chicken Nuggets In Your Air Fryer

While making your own at home takes a little work, you’ll see below that it really isn’t that much more difficult than opening a bag of nuggets. Follow these easy steps:

Storage And Re Heating

Make it ahead of time

Leftover nuggets can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

From the refrigerator Simple microwave them for couple of minutes to quickly re heat . However, to revive the crispy coating, re heat them in the air fryer for 5 minutes or bake at 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Don’t Miss: Beer Can Chicken Pellet Grill

Why You Should Cook The Chicken Nuggets In The Air Fryer

As we said above, the air fryer devices arrive with a lot of benefits. One of the top benefits of the air fryer is food cooked in the air fryer is healthier when compared to the other ways. As you require little or no oil, the prepared foods in the device include fewer calories and fats. Moreover, they dont much of the toxic compounds that can cause a variety of severe health issues in the long term.

The most impressive part of cooking in the air fryer is they are extremely easy. You dont require much effort while compared to the other methods. Simply, add the food, set the temperature and timer, and your food will be ready within a while. These devices also dont leave much of the messes after cooking, relieving your cleaning works.

So, here are the benefits of utilizing an air fryer for cooking your foods:

• They are extremely faster, almost 2 to 3x faster than oven, microwave, and stovetops.
• You are in control of everything to get the perfect cook, color, and texture.
• Produce comparatively lower harmful byproducts that can lead to serious diseases.
• Require little or no oil so that helps to cut the additional calorie and fats in the food.
• Assures better and even cooking with the least effort.

Frozen Chicken Tenders Or Nuggets In Air Fryer

Air frying has become my favorite way to cook chicken tenders, strips, and nuggets! These products usually come with cooking instructions that include baking in the oven, pan frying, deep frying and microwaving.

Here’s why I prefer air frying:

• Compared to baking in the oven, the air fryer is much faster. But because air fryers are small and circulate the air so efficiently, they cook food very quickly. They also give your food a crispier texture compared to the oven.

• Compared to pan frying, I find air frying is easier. No flipping pieces of chicken in hot oil on the stove. With the air fryer, you can just put them in and let the air fryer do its thing, except for shaking the basket halfway through.

• Compared to deep frying, air frying is healthier. Deep fryers cook food by submerging it in hot oil. Air fryers, on the other hand, cook food using hot air that circulates around it.

• Compared to the microwave, the air fryer gives a better texture. Microwaving is faster but it can give the chicken a rubbery texture. With the air fryer, you get crunchy, juicy perfection!

So basically, air frying is the bestway to cook frozen chicken tenders and nuggets!

Read Also: Recipe For Roast Chicken In Oven

Frozen Chicken Nuggets Air Fryer Method

Keeping a stash of frozen chicken nuggets in the freezer makes it easy to whip up a quick meal for the family or to nibble on with friends. Kids love them too, and you can add a healthy vegetable side dish to serve up a balanced meal.

Cooking chicken nuggets in an air fryer is very quick and in this recipe, we will show you how to do it using the Instant Pot Duo Crisp or a regular model with an air fryer lid. You can use similar timings for standalone air fryers as well.

You dont need to add extra oil and can cook the frozen chicken nuggets straight from the freezer. They will be done in 10-12 minutes depending on size. While they are cooking, you can whip up our honey mustard sauce and a quick salad, vegetables, and boil some pasta noodles or quinoa.

How Long To Cook Raw Chicken Nuggets In Air Fryer

Air frying raw chicken nuggets is easy, and its a great way to reduce the amount of saturated fat you consume, which will mean the nutrition calories in your nuggets will also go down.

Raw nuggets are usually still partially cooked, but no matter what, you shouldnt need more than 15 minutes total to cook your chicken in the air fryer. If youre worried, after 15 minutes, cut a thicker nugget to make sure its not pink in the middle to decide if you need to keep cooking them or not.

Read Also: Recipes For Chicken Breast Pan Fried

Should You Freeze Nuggets Before Or After Cooking

Ah, the age-old question! There really isnt a wrong answer on this one, as it comes down to preference. As per usual, I have a pretty strong preference hah! If Im making chicken nuggets to cook in an air fryer , I always freeze them before cooking.

I find that the breading will remain much crispier if its only cooked once and it will also adhere better to the chicken. So bread those nuggets, freeze them and then get ready for DIY dunk-able deliciousness any day of the week.

What Do You Eat With Them

If you’re trying to keep things a little on the healthier side, here are a few things that make these homemade chicken nuggets feel a little more sophisticated:

• Keto Broccoli Salad– A way to add some green to your plate that you will love just as much as the nuggets.
• Cauliflower Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Jalapenos– It’s just like a loaded macaroni and cheese recipe without all of the carbs.
• Apple Zucchini Salad– A refreshing salad perfect for a lighter option.
• Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts– Keep the carbs low with this quick and easy vegetable side.
• Air Fryer Zucchini– Craving fries or chips with your nugs? Make these in your air frier for a healthy bite.

You May Like: Best Fried Chicken In Los Angeles

What Is The Best Temperature To Cook Chicken Nuggets In Air Fryer

Air fryer chicken nuggets make a pretty great nice, and simple snack. The only thing you should now do is look for a good dip to accompany the chicken nugget. Using the air fryer helps maintain the crispiness that you, of course, require when having it.

When making these nuggets, they will be straight out of the freezer. Meaning you need to ensure that the temperature you cook them is ideal. Normally, the cooking temperature for chicken nuggets applies to all of them, whether they are from the freezer or not.

The only thing that you may need to adjust is the cooking time. Also, you need to ensure that the chicken nuggets cook until they reach a certain internal temperature. Only when the internal temperature is right can you conclude that they are ready.

When making them, you should first preheat the air fryer at 400 ªF. Doing so ensures the hot air circulates all through it. So once you place the chicken nuggets, they will start cooking right away.

Once the chicken nuggets start to cook, ensure they cook at 400 degrees. They should do so for about 10 minutes. After this, you should flip them to the other side and allow them to cook at the same temperature for some more minutes.

How Do I Make Tyson Chicken Nuggets In The Air Fryer

It couldnt be easier to make Tyson bran chicken nuggets in an air fryer. In fact, you dont need a recipe card for this. You can easily remember the steps.

Just place your nuggets in the air fryer basket in a single layer. Then set your air fryer timer to 10 minutes and let them cook at 350-400 f. If you want your nuggets to be crispier, you can wait a few more minutes before removing them and enjoying them with your favorite dipping sauce.

Read Also: Baked Chicken Thighs And Legs

Do You Need To Add Oil When Cooking Tyson Chicken Nuggets

When cooking chicken nuggets, adding a little oil for the moisture is highly recommended.

However, you can also omit the oil to make your chunks healthier.

You can now enjoy your delicious crispy Tyson chicken nuggets without all the oil and fat.

Using an air fryer can cook your food simply while still achieving that crunchy texture that everyone loves.

Remember to share this article with your family and friends before heading for their next barbecue or picnic.