Air Fryer Popcorn Chicken
This Air Fryer Popcorn Chicken makes enough to eat now and to freeze some for later!
Ingredients
Marinade
- 2 lbs chicken breast tenders, cut into small pieces
- 2 cups almond milk
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ ground paprika
Instructions
- In a large ziplock bag, add the chicken and all of the marinade ingredients. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, up to 6 hours.
- In a large shallow bowl, add all of the dry ingredients.
- After marinating, place chicken and marinade into a large bowl. Working in small batches, dredge chicken chunks into dry ingredients, shake off excess flour, dunk again briefly into the marinade, then dredge for a second time in the dry ingredients, fully coating each piece of chicken. Be sure to gently shake off excess flour mixture.
- Spray olive oil onto the bottom and sides of the inside of the air fryer vessel. Place breaded chicken in an even layer; set aside the rest of the chicken. Give the tops of the chicken in the air fryer vessel a quick spray with olive oil, then place into the air fryer.
- Air fry at 370°F for 10 minutes. Halfway through this cooking time (at 5 minutes), open the air fryer and shake the basket. If using a tray-style air fryer, use tongs to turn chicken pieces over. Spray tops of chicken with cooking spray, then resume air frying for the remaining 5 minutes. NOTE: depending on the size and amount of chicken, you may need to allow yours to cook in the air fryer for 2-3 minutes more.
- Remove from the air fryer, and repeat steps until you're finished with all of the chicken (usually 3 to 4 batches for me; it may be more or less for you, depending on your air fryer and also how you cut your chicken pieces).
- Serve immediately with your favorite dipping sauces. Place any extra chicken into freezer-safe plastic bags and freeze for up to 3 months.
Notes
Makes 3-4 batches. Serve some immediately and then freeze the rest.
NOTE: it is very important to make sure you shake off excess flour before cooking in the air fryer, and that you add an even layer of spray oil to the tops of the chicken. If your flour isn't crisping up at the end of 10 minutes, this usually means you either have too much flour left sticking to your chicken, you've crowded too many pieces into the space and they're not able to cook properly, and/or you need to add a little more oil to the tops.