Air Fryer Teriyaki Chicken

This simple recipe for Air Fryer Teriyaki Chicken uses just 2 ingredients and is ready in 15 minutes. Make it a full meal by air frying vegetables, like broccoli and carrots, with your chicken.

Air Fryer Teriyaki Chicken makes a delicious dish for dinner. You can choose to cook only the chicken tenders or add vegetables like broccoli and carrots to the air fryer to make it a simple, healthy complete dinner in only about 20 minutes.

This 3 step recipe uses just 2 ingredients, plus salt and pepper as seasonings. Along with pecan crusted chicken tenders and lemon-lime chicken, it's one of our favorite simple air fryer dinner recipes. Make it even more of a complete meal by serving over Instant Pot brown rice or white rice.

Ingredients

• Chicken tenderloins: this recipe calls for 1.5 pounds of chicken tenders, or 6-8 tenders if you're counting instead of weighing. You can also use chicken breasts, thighs or drumsticks.
• Teriyaki sauce: to make it really easy, we're using a bottle of store bought teriyaki sauce or teriyaki marinade. Both are equally delicious and won't change the method or cook time.
• Salt and black pepper
• Sesame seeds, for serving
• Scallions (green onions), for serving

How Can I Make A Homemade Teriyaki Sauce Instead?

If you'd prefer to make a homemade teriyaki sauce and don't already have a recipe, use this:

• ½ cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• ¼ cup dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 2 teaspoon of cold water

Mix together the soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, honey, minced garlic and ground chicken in a mixing bowl. Stir til smooth, then add in the cornstarch slurry. Mix til smooth then use in the recipe below in place of the store bought sauce.

Instructions

STEP 1: Prepare the 1.5 lbs chicken tenderloins by trimming away the fat. Put chicken in a large bowl or plastic baggie. Season chicken with salt and black pepper as desired. Add ⅔ cup teriyaki sauce and toss to coat the chicken. Marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.

STEP 2: Place the marinated chicken tenderloins in the air fryer basket or tray. Air fry at 375°F for 12-14 minutes (until a digital thermometer reads an internal temperature of 165℉). Flip chicken halfway through cooking and baste each side with additional teriyaki sauce.

STEP 4: Remove chicken from the air fryer basket and sprinkle with sesame seeds and sliced green onions if desired.

Make It A Full Meal

To make this a full dinner, add broccoli florets and cut carrots to the air fryer. If you're air fryer is large enough, you can add them to the basket when flipping the chicken half way through air frying. If it's not large enough, air fry the vegetables after the chicken is done cooking. It will take about 6 minutes for broccoli and sliced carrots to air fry.

To do this, toss 2 cups of broccoli florets and 1 cup of sliced or chopped carrots with extra virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and add to air fryer basket for 5-7 minutes (as instructed above).

Recipe Tips

• Marinate the chicken: for the best flavor marinate the chicken in the teriyaki sauce for at least one hour (or up to eight hours).
• Make it a complete dinner by adding vegetables: broccoli and carrots are great with chicken teriyaki, but cauliflower and green beans are good options too.
• Avoid dried out chicken by using a digital meat thermometer to check the internal temperature for doneness. At its thickest part, the tenders should be cooked only to 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

Teriyaki Chicken Recipe FAQs

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