Air Fryer Fried Chicken
Air Fryer Fried Chicken
This is Southern buttermilk fried chicken made in the air fryer instead of a pot of hot oil. Bone-in, skin-on thighs and drumsticks marinate in buttermilk and hot sauce, then get double-dredged in seasoned flour with an egg wash in between, so the coating turns thick and craggy rather than thin. Cooked in a single layer and flipped once, the chicken comes out juicy inside with a genuinely crisp, browned crust, no deep-fry pot required.
The marinade is simple: buttermilk and hot sauce, at least an hour, better overnight. The crust comes from a seasoned flour dredge, flour, a little cornstarch, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, paprika and cayenne, pressed on twice with an egg wash step in the middle. Before the chicken goes in the basket, every last floury patch gets a spray of oil; skip a spot and it stays pale and chalky instead of browning. That spray is doing the job the deep-fry oil would normally do.
Real Southern fried chicken is deep-fried in fat, and this is an explicit modern adaptation of that. The buttermilk-and-hot-sauce marinade, the seasoned flour crust and the preference for dark meat are the parts that carry over from the original. The oil spray is the one step with no equivalent in the deep-fried version — it exists purely to mimic the browning that the missing fat would otherwise give.
Ingredients
Serves 4
The chicken and marinade
- 1.4 kg chicken thighs and drumsticks, bone-in and skin-on (dark meat)
- 360 ml buttermilk, cultured
- 2 tbsp hot sauce, Louisiana-style (e.g. Frank’s or Tabasco)
The seasoned flour dredge
- 240 g all-purpose flour (or plain flour)
- 40 g cornstarch (or cornflour)
- optional: 1 tsp baking powder, for extra crisp
- 2 tsp salt, fine
- 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp paprika, sweet (mild)
- ½ tsp ground cayenne pepper
The egg wash
- 2 eggs, large
- 60 ml buttermilk
To cook
- neutral oil, for spraying (canola, vegetable, or avocado)
Directions
The chicken and marinade
Whisk the 360 ml (1½ cups) buttermilk with the hot sauce in a large bowl or a zip-top bag. Add the chicken, turn it to coat, cover, and refrigerate for at least an hour — overnight gives the best result.
The seasoned flour dredge
Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking powder if using, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and cayenne together in a shallow dish. In a second dish, beat the eggs with the remaining 60 ml (¼ cup) buttermilk.
Lift each piece of chicken from the marinade, letting the excess drip off, and press it into the seasoned flour. Dip it in the egg wash, then press it back into the flour a second time, building up a craggy, uneven coating. Set the pieces on a rack and let them rest for 15 minutes so the crust sets — this keeps it from sliding off in the air fryer. For a lighter, single-dredge version, skip the egg wash and go straight from the marinade into the flour once.
To cook
Spray the air fryer basket and preheat it to 190°C (375°F) for about 3 minutes. Spray the breaded chicken all over — every side, every white or floury patch — until no dry powder shows. This step does the work the frying oil would normally do, so don’t skimp on it.
Arrange the chicken skin-side down in a single layer with space between the pieces, cooking in batches if it doesn’t all fit at once. Air-fry at 190°C (375°F) for 25–30 minutes total, turning the pieces once with tongs at around the halfway point and respraying any spots that have dried out.
The chicken is done when the thickest part near the bone reads 165°F (74°C) on a thermometer; dark meat can go as high as 180°F (82°C) and still stay juicy. Keep finished batches warm on a rack in a 200°F (95°C) oven while the rest cooks, and let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Cook temperature is flexible: anywhere from 370–400°F (188–205°C) works with this flip-once, cook-to-temperature method — higher and shorter, or lower and longer, both work.
- Cornstarch and baking powder in the dredge are optional crisp-boosters, not traditional. Skip them for a plainer crust.
- Don’t crowd the basket. Cooking in a single layer with space between the pieces is what keeps the crust crisp instead of steaming it.
See Also
