Crispy Air Fryer Chicken Tenders

Healthy air fryer chicken tenders that are so crispy and flavorful. Cooked with the fraction of the oil that you’d normally use. Crispy from the outside, juicy and succulent from the inside and they’re dairy-free and taste amazing! This is a family-friendly recipe that you can make in just 20 minutes!

You guys LOVED my Crispy Air Fryer chicken breast recipe, and have been asking me about making chicken tenders in the air fryer. We make chicken tenders the same way as the chicken breast recipe, they’re just cooked faster as they’re much thinner. So here’s the best Air Fryer chicken tenders recipe that you’ll find on the internet! And I hope that you love it as much as we do!

Chicken tenders are usually marinated in buttermilk, and then deep fried in hot oil or baked in the oven. When it comes to coating chicken or fish, I try to avoid the egg/milk coating as I find it time-consuming, it also means that I’m cutting down the calories and the fats. 

Especially when I’m making something in my Air Fryer, I try to make a healthier version of the recipe as I can get away with using just a little bit of oil. For these air fryer chicken tenders, the chicken is coating in a little bit of olive oil for the breading to stick, then it’s coating in a seasoned breading mix and it’s air fried till perfection!

The chicken tenders turn out crispy from the outside, full of flavor, and juicy from the inside. Sounds perfect, right? Let’s jump in the recipe!

How to Bread Air Fryer Chicken

You can either coat the chicken with seasoned bread crumbs, or use the egg and flour method.

• Seasoned breadcrumbs, then drizzle some olive oil over the chicken strips and make sure that they’re coated. Then coat each chicken strip in the breading. The oil will help the breadcrumbs stick, and also help the chicken get that crispy and crunchy exterior.
• Or you could use the egg and flour method which will result in a thicker coat of breading, it’s time-consuming but also delicious.

Whichever way you choose, you have to make sure to season the coating (the breadcrumbs or the flour depending on which method you decided to go with) as that’s where most of the flavor comes from. And make sure that it’s salted enough for your liking.

How to Make Crispy Air Fryer Chicken Tenders

• Preheat the Air Fryer to 390°F (200°C).
• Place the chicken tenders in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil, mix the chicken to make sure that it’s well coated with oil.
• In a shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs with the seasonings.
• Coat each chicken strip in the seasoned bread crumbs and gently press to adhere. Shake off any excess bread crumbs.
• Arrange a single layer of the chicken in the air fryer basket, and cook for 9-12 minutes flipping halfway through.

How to Check If Fried Chicken Is Cooked Through

After 10-12 minutes of cooking, the air fryer chicken tenders should become golden and crispy. You can check the doneness of the chicken by using a fork and a knife and cut through a small piece to see if the meat is well cooked.

The best way to check is with a kitchen thermometer as it will ensure that your chicken is now safe to eat. Simply insert the thermometer in the center of the chicken piece, and the internal temperature of the chicken should be read 165°F or 75°C. If it hasn’t reached that temperature, just put the chicken piece back in the air fryer and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes and check again.

Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Tenders

If you have store-bought frozen chicken tenders that you want to cook in the air fryer, you can do so by cooking them at 200°C (400°F) for 13-15 minutes.

Dipping Sauces

Try my homemade Cane’s sauce recipe, it tastes just like the restaurant!

Or make sweet chili mayo sauce. In a small bowl, mix mayo with sweet chili and sriracha sauce until well combined and creamy.

Recommended Tools

• An Air Fryer. This is my favorite air fryer.
• Stainless steel locking tongs
• I can’t live without this non-stick grill pan accessory, I use it all the time!
• I love these stainless steel measuring cups and use them every time I cook, as well as those measuring spoons.
• These are the mixing bowls that you see in all of my pictures, they’re honestly the best!
• This air fryer magnetic cheat sheet is very handy, it contains cooking time and temperature to cook 66 most common ingredients which I find very useful.
• I also really like these air fryer parchment liners, they’re not just for steaming and you can use them for cooking things like fries or chicken without worrying that the food will stick to the basket. They’re also quite cheap and there are 100 pcs in a package.

And for a full set of air fryer accessories, I recommend this set.