Crispy Air Fryer Chicken Gizzards Recipe

Air fryer chicken gizzards are breaded, crispy, tender and delicious in your Ninja Foodi or Cosori. This is the best way of How to Cook Chicken Gizzards so they are fork tender and don’t go to waste.

Frozen Chicken Gizzards in Air Fryer

You can use fresh or frozen for this. The only difference between the two is the latter will take a little bit longer in the boiling process to get tender. That step is necessary whether these are baked, fried or cooked in your Ninja Foodi. One thing about cooking gizzards is to not rush things.

Organs such as these, including fried chicken livers and gizzards, need a little more pampering before being cooked. If you skip steps, they will be tough and not pleasing to your palate. Follow them to a tee, and you may be surprised at how much you like them.

Chicken Gizzards Recipe

We have a few different machines at home, they all work just fine to make these. I don’t have a huge preference between my Cosori or Air Wave but I do love all Ninja air fryer recipes for sure.

As you can imagine these are quite bland as is. There’s a trick on how air fry chicken gizzards. When you soak them in salt water first you’ll add flavor and that will help to break down the protein cells making it softer. Then boiling them will continue to break the toughness out of it and after THAT you’re ready to coat and fry.

Seems like a bit of a lengthy process but you can prep, walk away and just come back. Set a timer and when they’re on the stovetop leave it at a low rolling boil so you don’t have to pay much attention to them.

How long do chicken gizzards take to cook?

Once it reaches a boiling point you’ll want to leave them on there for a good 30 minutes. This isn’t the only way to prepare and enjoy them either so you could make a larger batch, bread some, and make gizzard gravy out of the rest for dinnertime.

How long to pressure cook gizzards before frying?

To make this process faster you could boil in your electric pressure cooker instead. For this method you would add them after soaked in the bowl of salt water. Drain that, rinse, pour into your IP with water 2″ above the top of your meat. Cook time is dramatically faster than on the stovetop for sure.

• Close lid and steam valve
• Set to high pressure for 15 minutes
• Allow for a 10 minute natural release at the end
• Drain and follow the process at the bottom to air fry after that

As far as seasonings go you could use whatever you wish. Dry taco seasoning works really well though for this air fryer snack. Brings a ton of flavor to an otherwise bland bite and it’s already mixed together in a jar so no need to add more prep.

Southern Fried Chicken Gizzards

If you want more of a down South flavor I might choose to use a spicy dry mix. About 1 Tbsp should do it unless you use substantially more than I did. Old Bay is another favorite to add a lot of YUM and an Old Fashioned favorite amongst my family down South too.

Are fried gizzards a Southern thing?

I mean you can be from any part of the U.S. to enjoy these but for sure they are found more often in restaurants in Georgia and those areas. You can get the same crisp result this way without the added calories and fat. Yes you can deep fry for 4-5 minutes after boiling if you’d prefer but why?? They are actually quite healthy, here are nutrition facts as is.

If you like dipping sauces to serve with these there are a few popular choices. Fry sauce is great, tartar sauce, or ketchup work too. You can work on these when these are cooking…..

How to Make Air Fryer Chicken Gizzards

• Place gizzards in a medium size bowl and coat with salt.
  • Fill with water and soak for 2 hours, then rinse
• Then put them in a pot full of water, bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
  • While simmering, get out 2 separate bowls to prepare the whisked egg and breadcrumb mixture.
• Drain the pot and set aside to cool off.
• Whisk egg in a separate bowl. Place bite size pieces (one at a time) inside, coat and sit for 5 minutes to thoroughly coat.
  • Put several at a time in the breadcrumb mixture and toss to coat. Repeat until all are well coated.
• Preheat air fryer to 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Open air fryer basket and spray with non stick spray. Place coated pieces in a single layer in the air fryer.
  • Air fry chicken at 400 for 6-8 minutes cook time or until crispy as desired on the outside.
  • Can spray the tops with olive oil to get REALLY crispy

I don’t like to shake the basket after you cook for 4 minutes halfway thru because the breading falls off. There isn’t a real need for this.

Air fryer chicken gizzards without flour recipe

We don’t use any all purpose to coat these babies. That doesn’t add flavor anyway and just dries the outsides out. Instead dredge in egg and then in a mixture of breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese! A gluten-free option that we prefer for sure.

You really could follow these same steps if you wanted to air fry chicken liver pieces. I would cut that into smaller bite size pieces too in order to get them tender. You can coat all with egg and fill container with breading. Add, snap the lid on and shake to coat. This will work but will not coat it as well as one at a time.