Name: Air Fryer KFC Chicken
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 16 min
Total time: 26 min
Ingredients: Air Fryer; 6 Tbsp KFC Spice Blend; 2 Small Whole Chickens; 150 g Plain Flour; 4 Large Eggs; 150 g Breadcrumbs; 1 Tbsp Chicken Seasoning; Salt & Pepper

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Air Fryer KFC Chicken. Follow our homemade Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe and make your own KFC chicken in the air fryer.

The air fryer does a magical job of transforming your KFC ingredients into crispy KFC chicken that is cheaper and healthier than your favourite takeout.

We originally shared with you how to make KFC chicken in the air fryer back in the summer of 2016 and wanted to update it today for you with new photos and extra ideas.

air fryer kfc chicken recipe — Air Fryer KFC Chicken Recipe

KFC Air Fryer Chicken
Can You Cook KFC In Air Fryer?
What Is KFC Original Chicken?
KFC Chicken Ingredients
How To Make KFC Chicken At Home?
Achieving Crispy KFC Chicken In Air Fryer
Creating A Fried Chicken Production Line
What To Serve With Your KFC Chicken?
Air Fryer Dinner Ideas
More KFC Chicken In Air Fryer
Air Fryer KFC Chicken Recipe
Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!

KFC Air Fryer Chicken

One of my favourite ever uses of the air fryer is to make breaded chicken. You can create a production line and have your chicken getting coated in the flour, then in the egg and finally in the breadcrumbs.

Once set up its an effortless way to make fried chicken in the air fryer.

But what I prefer to do is make KFC air fryer chicken. I have loved eating at KFC for many years and up until recently, lived in Portugal and didn’t have access to the same KFC chicken options as everyone else takes for granted.

Dominic and I would spend a little while in the kitchen making a few of our copycat KFC chicken favourites including:

Each one of them is delicious and comes from similar KFC ingredients. You can make them all and have a feast, or you can just pick and choose which one best suit your favourite KFC menu items.

Best of all, they all cook in the air fryer and the air fryer is fantastic for making your own KFC chicken at home.

Plus, as well as our free newsletter, we also have a free air fryer mini course. It is ideal for air fryer beginners or those that want to get more confident with their air fryer. The free course runs for 5 days with a new lesson delivered each day to your inbox.

Can You Cook KFC In Air Fryer?

Yes you can. You can swap the deep fat fryer for the air fryer and add in your just breaded chicken and air fry it.

It will taste better than the deep fat fryer because it wont be loaded with fat, yet will taste a lot more crispy compared to making KFC in the oven.

What Is KFC Original Chicken?

When you look online for a Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe you will often see mentions for KFC original chicken.

What this means is that you are looking for an authentic KFC chicken copycat recipe that is similar to the KFC that is served in KFC takeout throughout the world.

It is also associated with the KFC spice blend that is used on the chicken which we will be showing you how to use today.

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USA/Canada: Amazon USA – Barnes & Noble – Indigo – Book Shop – Books A Million
Australia: Booktopia – Mighty Ape
UK/Rest Of The World: Amazon UK – Waterstones –– Book Depository

KFC Chicken Ingredients

Chicken – KFC style fried chicken starts with some whole chickens, which is the best option if you want authentic KFC, and you want to save money. Simply follow our guide for how to chop up a whole chicken and use two small whole chickens. Then you will have 4 drumsticks, 4 thighs, 4 breasts and 4 wings.

Egg – I recommend cracking a few eggs into a bowl and mixing them with some extra seasoning. This helps keep your chicken more flavoursome and helps the breading stick to the chicken better.

Flour – The flour is what goes on the chicken first and helps the egg then stick to the flour. You can use any flour that you have in your pantry. I usually use this as an excuse to have a kitchen pantry clear out.

Seasoning – Its all about the delicious seasoning mix that you associate with KFC chicken. You can also mix and match if you have a food allergy which is what us Milner’s do.

Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this air fryer KFC recipe, it has just been our Philips Air Fryer. We have this one and its wonderful for many types of air fryer chicken recipes and perfectly fits a big batch of KFC chicken in it.

How To Make KFC Chicken At Home?

how to make kfc chicken in the air fryer

Seasonings. Start by mixing together your KFC spice blend in a container. I always use a container because I can then save the leftovers for next time I want homemade Kentucky fried chicken.
Production. Its all about the production line. Create a bowl with your egg mixture, one bowl with your seasoned flour and a third with your seasoned breadcrumbs. A fourth bowl will then have your raw chicken pieces that are waiting to be breaded. Though see below for a full explanation of how this works.
Coat. Load your chicken into the flour first, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Making sure each of your KFC chicken pieces are well coated.
Load. Add to the air fryer and air fry for 16 minutes. If you are cooking a lot of chicken do a single layer, then do more batches.

Achieving Crispy KFC Chicken In Air Fryer

If you feel your KFC chicken is not crispy enough in the air fryer, I recommend that you add a little extra virgin olive oil spray. Simply spray the chicken a couple of minutes before the end of the cooking time. This will achieve a super crispy texture.

Though most of the time I have found that your KFC chicken doesn’t need this because of what a great job the air fryer does.

Creating A Fried Chicken Production Line

This is my personal KFC chicken production line:

Its all about being organised and being able to make KFC chicken in the air fryer FAST.

I always make this as my first task and then any leftovers can be used in another breaded recipe.

I will create a bowl with the eggs, one with the flour, one with the breadcrumbs. Then to make the chicken more flavoursome I will coat it in the seasoning first, before it enters the flour like this:

Then into the flour it goes for a good layer of flour for the egg to stick to:

Then it will be drenched in the egg batter until thoroughly coated:

Then for the final step it goes into the breadcrumbs:

You’re now ready for the air fryer.

As you can see this has you organised and if you are cooking a lot of chicken you can prep your second lot while the air fryer is cooking your first lot.

What To Serve With Your KFC Chicken?

For a bit of fun, what I like to do is keep an old KFC chicken bucket and reuse it for serving our KFC air fryer chicken.

You can then smile thinking what a great KFC fakeaway that you have made in the air fryer and serve it with the usual sides that you normally buy from KFC.

You can make our air fryer frozen corn on the cob, our air fryer frozen French fries or pair it with our air fryer potato wedges.

Air Fryer Lasagna

Air Fryer Curry

Air Fryer Pasta Bake

Air Fryer Sausage And Chips

Air Fryer Steak And Chips

Air Fryer Pork Roast

More KFC Chicken In Air Fryer

Would you like more KFC chicken in the air fryer? Or like me do you have leftovers that need using up and you want to make something else.

If so, follow the rest of our air fryer KFC series below:

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4.25 from 12 votes

Air Fryer KFC Chicken

By: Sam & Dom

Air Fryer KFC Chicken. Follow our homemade Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe and make your own KFC chicken in the air fryer.

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 16

Total Time: 26

Servings:

Ingredients

Kitchen Gadgets:

▢ Air Fryer

Metric – Imperial

Instructions

Chop up your whole chickens into drumsticks, thighs, wings, and breasts. Put to one side.
Create your production line. Crack eggs into a bowl and mix with a fork. Place flour in a bowl and season well with chicken seasoning, salt, and pepper. Place breadcrumbs into a bowl and mix with half your KFC rub.
Toss the chicken in half your KFC rub. Then load chicken into the flour mixture, then into the egg, and then into the breadcrumbs bowl. Make sure each piece of chicken is well coated from each bowl.
Place the KFC chicken into the air fryer basket on a single layer.
Cook for 12 minutes at 180c/360f. Then turn and cook for a further 4 minutes at the same temperature. If doing a big batch doing in lots making sure you on don’t over fill the air fryer.
Serve warm in your old KFC bucket.

Video

Notes

Chopping. We chopped a small whole chicken (it weighed slightly more than a Cornish hen) and I recommend you read how to chop up a whole chicken before doing this recipe.

Alternatively buy a mixture of thighs, drumsticks, wings, and breast and use that instead.

Reheat. I recommend you check out our reheating KFC chicken guide as its perfect for your leftovers from this recipe and also includes a video.

Thanks for reading our air fryer KFC chicken recipe on Recipe This. We have many more air fryer recipes for you to check out next. Though if you would like more breaded chicken ideas, I recommend you check out our air fryer breaded chicken wings next.

Nutrition

Like this recipe? Rate and comment below!

Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!

43 Comments

Kacey Cabbage says:

July 29, 2020 at 11:04 pm

????????
Louise says:

July 11, 2020 at 9:31 pm

I am amazed by how good KFC chicken is in the air fryer. Didn’t think much of the air fryer, well until now.
Gino Vessels says:

June 19, 2020 at 5:13 pm

I really like your blog.. very nice recipes and your KFC chicken is the best so far.
Cakebaker says:

January 12, 2019 at 8:43 am

Thanks so much for this recipe. I am in Australia so have no problem with the weights in Imperial or metric….
My Grandson will love me being able to make KFC at home. He has a nasty reaction to KFC…..not sure what it is in it but it will be great for him not to miss out on a favourite food.
1. Sam and Dom says:
  
  January 13, 2019 at 10:13 am
  
  Hi Cakebaker
  
  Really glad you get to make this recipe for your grandson,hope he likes it as much as we do ?
Shelby Parker says:

April 3, 2018 at 12:54 pm

Your recipe for KFC is fantastic .tryed it An love it.
1. Sam and Dom says:
  
  April 3, 2018 at 1:52 pm
  
  Thank you for the great feedback Shelby 🙂
  
  Many Thanks
  
  Dom
Bonnie says:

March 8, 2018 at 10:21 pm

can you stack pieces of chicken in the fryer or do you have to lay the pieces flat with no overlapping?
1. Sam and Dom says:
  
  March 9, 2018 at 2:51 pm
  
  Hi Bonnie,
  
  Its best not to, as they will stick together and not turn out as well.
  
  If you are doing a lot, I recommend the oven on its lowest setting and then transfer each batch, while waiting for the last. This way it will stop it from going cold.
  
  Kind regards
  
  Sam
  X
John says:

February 5, 2018 at 10:22 pm

I’m Canadian. Metric AND imperial measurements are not a problem. Ha!
Deb says:

January 9, 2018 at 6:46 pm

In this recipe you say to add the spices to the breadcrumbs and in the KFC spice recipe you say to add the spices to the flour. Which is it? Thanks.
1. Sam and Dom says:
  
  January 10, 2018 at 1:25 pm
  
  Hi Deb
  
  We do both. We do not think it matters which you do only that you seem to get a better coating of the spices when added to the flour and we found that when the spices are added to the breadcrumbs you can taste them alot more. In the flour they are alot more subtle.
  
  Kind Regards
  
  Sam
phyllis williams says:

December 12, 2017 at 1:22 pm

hi

i live in england where can i buy the kfc spices for you recipe
thanks
phyl
1. Sam and Dom says:
  
  December 12, 2017 at 3:04 pm
  
  Hi Phyllis
  
  We use are own blend of the kfc spice blend which you can find here:
  
  http://recipethis.com/how-to-make-the-kfc-secret-chicken-rub/
  
  Hope you try and enjoy it.
  
  Kind Regards
  
  Sam
  X
  1. phyllis williams says:
    
    January 11, 2018 at 2:58 pm
    
    hi
    tried it for my son who loves kfc he thinks i did i brill job thansk to you both
    phyllis england
    1. Sam and Dom says:
      
      January 11, 2018 at 3:02 pm
      
      Thank you Phyllis for choosing to make one of our recipes we greatly appreciate it, and happy your son loved it 🙂
      
      Thanks.
      
      Sam