Best Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast Recipe

This air fryer frozen chicken breast recipe whips up in no time, so you’ll have juicy chicken breasts ready for dinner in minutes.

Serves: 3-4 Time: 20 minutes Cookbook: Matt’s Kitchen

We’ve all been there. Those crazy busy weekdays that turn into frantic weeknights when you get home from work, after collecting your kids from soccer practice, ballet, after school programs, and extra curricular activities. You help with homework, feed the dog, welcome your spouse as they walk in the door, and realize you have nothing for dinner.

Enter: the fastest air fryer chicken breast recipe on the planet. But your chicken is frozen, you say. No matter! You’ll have juicy chicken breasts in no time with this handy dandy recipe. Using your air fryer is a great way to put dinner on the table. All you have to do now is decide how you’ll use the soon-to-be-cooked chicken. On a salad? In a burrito? For tacos? The ideas are endless. Let’s get air frying!

Jump Ahead:

• ❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
• 🍗 Ingredients Needed to Make Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast
• 🍴 Equipment You’ll Need in the Kitchen
• 🥄 How to Make Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast
• ♾️ Variations on Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast
• ❓ Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast: Tips, Tricks, and FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Easy: You can’t get much easier than placing a frozen chicken breast in the air fryer and having it come out perfectly moist, juicy, tender, and ready for dinner.

Fast: Air frying is one of the few ways you can go from frozen to done in less time than it takes to meal prep. Get dinner on the table for the whole family faster than ever.

Wholesome: Chicken is a great source of protein and pairs with a wide variety of meals. Using healthy oils and spices will boost the nutritional and flavor factor of this delicious chicken even more.

Ingredients Needed to Make Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast

• Frozen Chicken Breasts: You want around 3 pounds of frozen boneless skinless chicken breast. No need to thaw – this recipe takes those puppies from rock solid right out of the freezer to ready for your dinner plate in minutes.
• Vegetable Oil: Since olive oil has a smoking point of around 350-375 degrees, you’ll want to use an oil that can withstand high-temperature cooking. Grapeseed oil, avocado oil, or peanut oil will all work great for this recipe.
• Chicken Spice Rub: Choose your favorite chicken rub. You’ll need about 7 teaspoons in total. If you need some inspiration, we’ve listed the ingredients to our favorite chicken rub in the recipe card below.

Equipment Needed In the Kitchen

Air Fryer

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Tongs

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Instant Read Thermometer (w/ extendable probe)

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• Air Fryer: We have the Ninja Foodi air fryer and absolutely love it. It’s powerful, has a large basket, and all the inserts are dishwasher safe. That’s a major win in our house. Using this unit is one of our favorite ways to cook up an easy meal during busy nights.
• Tongs: You’ll need a solid pair of tongs to flip the chicken halfway into cooking time and to remove the chicken when it’s finished. Be sure to wash the tongs in between!
• Instant Read Thermometer (Meat Thermometer): We love using this thermometer. Thanks to the extendable probe, we can keep the thermometer probe in the chicken and close the air fryer lid, allowing us to read the temperature without having to open the lid each time we want to check.

How to Make Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast

Air fryer chicken is so easy you might never do it the old way again. Go from frozen to finished in just minutes with this simple recipe!

Marinate the chicken

First up, preheat the air fryer to 400 degrees F and set the cook time for 20 minutes.

While the air fryer preheats, mix the chicken rub and olive oil in a small bowl and combine to make a marinade.

Brush the marinade all over one side of the chicken, then transfer the chicken to the preheated air fryer basket. Lay the chicken in a single layer. It can touch, but it shouldn’t be overlapping. This ensures the hot air can circulate evenly around the skinless chicken breasts.

Air fry the chicken

Begin air frying. After 10 minutes of cook time, flip the chicken over and slather the remainder of marinade over the unmarinated sides of the chicken breasts.

Cook for another 5 minutes, then check the internal temperature.

Check for doneness

Check the internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer. If the internal temperature of the chicken is 165 degrees F or higher, it’s done. If it’s not quite there yet, add another minute or two to the total cook time and recheck.

You want to pull it as close to 165 as possible, otherwise, you risk drying out the chicken. As you can see, we let ours go about one minute too long, but it still turned out great.

Note: Each model of air fryer cooks a bit differently. The timing is approximate but should work for most models.

Variations on Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast

So how can you use air fryer chicken in your meal planning? Here are a few ways we love incorporating this great protein.

Pasta with Chicken: Air fryer chicken is perfect for slicing or dicing and tossing with your favorite pasta and sauce.

Chicken Salad: Want to keep dinner on the healthy side? Make a large salad and cut up one chicken breast to top it.

Chicken Burritos: We love Mark Bittman’s Chicken Black Bean Burritos, but if you don’t have time to make the chicken, or you want to make it ahead, then you could use this chicken instead of cooking it prior to assembling the burrito.

Chicken Tacos: This also makes great meat for chicken tacos. Let the meat cool completely, then slice or dice into chunks and add it to a soft flour tortilla with all your favorite taco fillings.

Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breast: Tips, Tricks, and FAQs

More Easy Air Fryer Recipes

Since you’ve already got that air fryer out, why not give one of these recipes a try?

Air Fryer Chicken Tenders: Chicken strips cooked in three ways – dippable chicken nuggets for the kids, chicken tenderloins for tacos, and chicken pieces for a salad.

Air Fryer Sausages: Classic sausages done in minutes thanks to the air fryer

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