Air Fryer Chicken Breast

If you want succulent and tasty chicken breast, you’ll want to try my Air fryer chicken breast recipe. This chicken breast recipe helps you make chicken breast that is so tasty, moist, and healthy as well as being a super simple to prepare and cook. I love making some air fryer broccoli alongside for a full meal–tips and video too!

Cooking chicken in the air fryer has forever changed my life–like seriously life changing! Air Fryer Whole Chicken has the crispiest skin with the juiciest meat! Air Fryer Chicken Wings is my go to chicken wings recipe. Air Fryer Chicken Legs cook perfectly every time with a crispy skin and it’s seriously a fool proof recipe for chicken legs.

So with all that success with air fr4yer chicken recipes, we needed to have a go to fool proof chicken breast in the air fryer. And here it is! 

Best Air Fryer Chicken Breast 

Chicken breast is popular meat to cook for regular lunches and dinners. But just because it’s regular, doesn’t mean it has to be drab. Using the air fryer to cook your chicken breasts helps you to make your chicken breasts extra special by locking in both flavor and moisture. 

Air fryer chicken breast is a hands-off and easy approach to cooking your chicken breast. No hovering around while it cooks, just flip halfway through and you’ve got perfect chicken breast at the end. 

Today’s air fryer chicken breast recipe is special because:

• The chicken breast is super juicy thanks to a 20 minute brine tip (more below)!
• It’s minimal effort as you don’t need to pan sear and stand by your stove.
• You can flavor it endlessly (think Mediterranean, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian and more!)
• It’s the perfect chicken breast for meal prep!
• While the oven is also hand off for chicken breast, it’s also tricky to avoid drying up the chicken. So the air fryer is fool proof!
• This recipe works great with any cut of chicken, fresh or frozen–more on that below!

Air Fryer Chicken Ingredients

There are a few components to the recipe: 

• Chicken Breasts — Use boneless and skinless.
• Brine: Water and salt. I love adding a sprig of fresh thyme which is optional, and you can use fresh rosemary too if you have it on hand.
  
• Dry spice for the chicken : salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder, chilli powder.
• Lots of quality olive oil (I love mina olive oil the most–read all about it in this Olive Oil Cake and Labneh Dip with Zaatar Pistachio Mint Olive Topping posts.

• A butter and roast garlic toping to slather the chicken once cooked for a boost of flavor! I have a simple and straightforward recipe for How to Roast Garlic and while you’re there check out the Ultimate Garlic Bread made with roast garlic and herbs!
• If you have some of this Garlic Butter Sauce on hand–you’re good to go!! It’s a seriously versatile recipe and you’ll be using it with SO MANY recipes!

How to Cook Chicken Breast in the Air Fryer

There really is nothing to this recipe even though it feels like a few steps–they’re all straightforward and super versatile. So you may choose to skip the roast garlic butter spread –but I highly recommend it! You may also decide to swap the asparagus for the broccoli or just have the chicken without veggies. 

The three steps to this recipes comes down to preparing the chicken, air frying the chicken and finishing it off with the garlic butter sauce. Here are the details:

Preparing Chicken Breast

The first step in this recipe is to prepare the chicken breast by soaking it in brine. This is the secret to keeping your chicken breast nice and moist as you cook it. Chicken breast has a tendency to dry out as it is such a lean meat, so you don’t want to skip this first step.

To do this, prepare a bowl with water and kosher salt, and place the raw chicken breast in it with a sprig of thyme for 20- 30 minutes.  While the chicken soaks, you can make the dry spice rub in another small bowl.  

Once you have soaked your chicken in brine, take it out and pat it dry with paper towels. 

Then sprinkle the spice rub evenly over both sides of your chicken breast and then drizzle a generous amount of Mina olive oil over it too, making sure the chicken breast is fully coated in both the seasoning and olive oil. 

Place the chicken breast into the air fryer basket and cook. The timings will depend on the size of the chicken breast. 

How long to Cook Chicken Breast in Air Fryer?

Cook time will vary depending on how big your chicken breasts are.

• Small Breasts (5 to 7 ounces): 7 to 10 minutes
• Medium Breasts (8 to 10 ounces): 10 to 12 minutes
• Large Breasts (11 ounces or more): 12 to 16 minutes

Make sure to flip the chicken breasts over halfway through cooking to get a good even cook on both sides.

Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast 

For convenience sake, you might have frozen chicken breasts you want to cook with. You can follow the same recipe as above to air fry your chicken breasts but skip the brining part. Your chicken won’t come out as juicy but you will certainly still get lovely and flavorsome chicken breasts.

You will need to cook them for 18-20 minutes if cooking from frozen, flipping the chicken halfway through their cook time.  

Serve Air Fryer Chicken Breast 

This air fryer chicken breast recipe is served with fresh broccoli and a butter garlic drizzle. 

To cook the broccoli, simply drizzle with Mina olive oil and add to the air fryer basket for the last few minutes of cook time. 

For the garlic butter sauce, you will need to make roasted garlic . To do this, mix roasted garlic with melted butter, along with the seasonings and dried herbs. You can also use my Garlic Butter Sauce.

Once the chicken breast and broccoli are fully cooked, serve on a plate with a generous amount of roasted garlic butter.

Air Fryer Chicken Tips and FAQ’s

• Make sure your chicken is totally dry before adding the dry seasoning on. Any liquid makes your recipe come out a watery mess as well as ruining the texture. 
• Only use a dry seasoning rub, any liquid marinades will affect the outcome of the recipe and won’t work well. 
• Don’t skip the brining part if using fresh chicken, this ensures a juicy and moist texture. 
• While the garlic butter is optional–I strongly recommend it! 
• Adding broccoli makes this recipe perfect for meal prep and makes it a whole meal served alongside pasta or salad.

Is air fryer chicken healthier? 

Air fryer chicken is definitely a healthy option. Especially compared to oil frying. It reduces the amount of fat significantly, so it is a great option if you are trying to reduce your fat intake. 

Do you need to use oil on chicken in the air fryer? 

I recommend that you do use good olive oil, like Mina olive oil to coat your chicken before cooking. This helps to both lock the flavor in as well as prevent sticking. 

Can an air fryer cook raw chicken? 

Yes absolutely, I recommend you do cook your chicken raw if you want the best, most flavorsome results in the air fryer. 

Can you cook this recipe without an air fryer? 

This recipe can be cooked in several ways. While I think the air fryer is the best, most convenient way, you can fry this chicken in a skillet, grill, or bake it in the oven with great results. 

How many chicken breasts can you cook at once in an air fryer?

You can cook as many as you can in one layer without the chicken breasts touching each other. This is likely to be between 2-3 medium chicken breasts, However, you may be able to fit in more or less depending on breast and air fryer size. 

What to serve with Air fryer chicken breasts? 

In this recipe, I’ve chosen to serve the chicken breasts with broccoli. However, this is such a versatile recipe that you can almost serve it with anything from mixed vegetables to mashed potatoes and fries.