Air Fried Copycat Chick-Fil-A Nuggets
So if you haven’t heard, the word on the street is Chick-fil-a uses pickle juice in their chicken recipes. I use pickle juice often for making shredded chicken in the Crockpot or Instant Pot and it always comes out fantastic. If you haven’t tried my Chicken Dicken Recipe for the Instant Pot, then you must soon! A popular recipe of mine that has become a weekly staple in my kitchen, is my “Grilled” Air Fried Nuggets. With both of those recipes in mind, I figured it was time to make a copycat Chick-fil-a recipe for nuggets in the air fryer. I don’t have any idea on how their establishment actually makes them, but I figured this would be the best and easiest way to recreate them at home, using your air fryer. You can certainly deep fry them to finish with an even better product, however this recipe is supposed to keep them on the healthier side, so air fried it is!
Ingredients:
1 pound chicken breast
½ cup pickle juice (plus a quarter cup more)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 cups breadcrumbs
1 egg
¼ cup milk
Oil spray
Chick-Fil-A Sauce:
½ cup mayo
¼ cup honey
¼ bbq sauce
2 tbsp yellow mustard
½ lemon squeezed for juice
Instructions:
To prepare the sauce, whisk all of its ingredients together until combined. Cover and keep in the fridge until ready to use.
Trim chicken breasts of any fat, then cut into small cubed-like pieces. Place all the pieces of chicken in a large Ziplock bag for marinating. Pour ½ cup of pickle juice in the bag, then seal and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours, all day, or overnight is best.
Once chicken has marinated, use a small mixing bowl to combine: lightly beaten egg, ¼ cup pickle juice, milk, salt and pepper.
Remove chicken from the Ziplock bag and place the chicken pieces in the egg mixture. Throw away the old marinade and Ziplock baggie. Toss the chicken to coat and let sit in the egg mixture for a few minutes. Then, fill a shallow bowl, dish or plate with breadcrumbs, set aside. Also set up a clean plate or small tray with parchment paper to transfer the raw, breaded chicken until ready to be cooked.
In the meantime, preheat the air fryer to 360 for 5 minutes.
To bread the chicken: use a fork to grab a small chicken piece from the egg mixture, lightly tap off any excess liquid, then place on the plate with breadcrumbs. Use the other one hand to carefully roll and pat the chicken in breadcrumbs until it is even coated and crumbs have stuck on. Transfer the raw, breaded chicken to the clean plate and continue to work in batches until all the chicken is breaded.
Spray the basket of the air fryer, then carefully place one piece of chicken at a time into the air fryer. Spray the chicken pieces with an olive spray to help give them a nice golden color while air frying. Keep the chicken in one even layer and do not overcrowd or overlap. Work in batches if they don’t all fit at once in your air fryer.
Air fry for 8 minutes at 360. Carefully remove from the air fryer and transfer to a serving platter. Serve hot with your favorite dipping sauce or in between mini buns with sliced pickles.
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