Our crispy homemade air fryer popcorn chicken recipe without buttermilk is delicious. You can make in your Ninja Foodi or other brand. Similar to our homemade air fryer chicken nuggets but crunchier and smaller to pop into your mouth.
You’ve got to make a batch of these homemade popcorn chicken pieces. Served with your favorite dipping sauces, this is one of our favorite air fryer recipes that will make you a hero with your kids.
This is just one of our many air fryer chicken recipes, but this is probably my kids’ favorite one. An easy homemade chicken nuggets recipe you can make plain with salt and pepper or lots of seasonings if you’d rather. But these are even smaller which means you can get them way crispier! Everyone will love these, from adults and kids.
Yes of course you can make frozen popcorn shrimp in air fryer and things in your basket too but those are full of preservatives. If you have the time I suggest you use breading with diced breasts or thighs and make these yourself. Your kids will like them better I promise.
Ninja Foodi Popcorn Chicken
Tips: My Favorite models are the Cosori or making Ninja Foodi recipes with the lid that is attached.
It is best practice to put food into a hot basket. This is how to preheat air fryer first before adding your food so it becomes as crispy as possible. For best results, here’s a printable free air fryer cooking time chart here for your fridge.
I used my Cosori air fryer for this one but any brand will do. For the Foodi use the lid that is attached for this one. To start use chicken breasts or thighs if you’d rather.
Ingredient Notes
As for the meat I use boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size chunks. I mean you really could use thighs if you prefer dark meat.
All purpose flour will be the base of the breading, you can season as you wish but oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper are the best.
Breadcrumbs can be Italian so the seasonings are already included in the container, or you could use Panko for a lighter coating or traditional if you would rather.
Egg will allow the coating to stick well. If you need to know how to bread chicken without eggs we have a few other options here for you too. And the seasonings used are listed below but that is really up to you. Want it spicy? Add some red pepper flakes or dry Sriracha on the outside.
How Long to Cook Popcorn Chicken in Air Fryer
This doesn’t take much longer than about 10 minutes total as is. With a light breading you’ll reach a safe internal meat temperature in no time. You could make air fryer chicken no breading pieces too if you wanted.
Tips for Success
Cube piedces up like you see here as small or large as you wish. Just note that smaller will cook faster so you’ll need to adjust timing accordingly. Now let’s get to the crunchy breading and seasoning those babies shall we. Just mix those seasonings and toss to coat. Then let that sit so it sort of becomes a sort of chicken marinade of sorts, like a chicken wing dry rub.
Make sure you put all your bite size pieces in a single layer. That will ensure each piece gets hot air circulating around every inch to get to crunchy perfection. A quick spray of olive oil cooking spray is a must in my book as well. Leads to an easier cleanup and the bottom won’t stick once it’s time to flip them over either.
If you want even faster cook time, follow our chicken fries in air fryer. Those are sliced super skinny so they cook at no time at all. I would adjust the cook time to 6-8 minutes flipping halfway thru if you went for that version.
Sauce for Dipping
Especially if you have kids you are going to want a few yummy dips to go with these babies right?? You can go with boring like ketchup or bbq sauce but we like a few more and just use the same Dipping Sauce for Chicken Wings choices to make the meal really fun.
Air Fryer Popcorn Chicken Recipe
Equipment
- 1 air fryer
- 2 bowls
Ingredients
- 2 medium chicken breasts, boneless, cut into bite size pieces
- 1 cup Panko bread crumbs
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp chili flakes, or more if you want it spicy
- 2 tsp oregano
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp pepper
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
Instructions
- Rinse, pat dry with paper towels and cut chicken into 1" pieces. Sprinkle salt, black pepper, chili flakes, onion powder, garlic powder and oregano on outsides, toss in seasoning mix. Let this sit for 10 minutes to "marinate".
- One at a time, dip the chicken pieces into the flour. Shake off excess, then dip into the egg, and then into the bread crumbs. You can do this a 2nd time to make extra crispy if desired.
- Place coated pieces on a piece of parchment paper to rest while you're coating remaining.
- Preheat air fryer to 350 degrees F for 5 minutes.
- Spray inside of air fryer basket with olive oil spray. Lay pieces inside without overlapping.
- Spray top of pieces with olive oil and cook for 5 minutes, flip pieces over, spray lightly again on top and cook for another 5 minutes until golden brown and crispy.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Can you eat popcorn chicken the next day?
As long as you refrigerated it throughout the night you could reheat chicken in air fryer. Of course they won’t be as crunchy as they were fresh but air frying them again for 2 minutes or so will help.
They will be more dried out because you’re heating them twice but you also don’t want to waste what is left over. You could warm, dice up and throw it over a salad though! OR use in make a chicken salad sandwich with it.
There are 2 recipes on The Typical Mom who uses frozen, but would be even better with this. One is our Instant Pot sweet and sour chicken, the other is our air fryer orange chicken!
If you’re serving these as is for a snack or dinnertime our favorite dips are bbq, Ranch or fry sauce. Want to try one more goodie? Try Ninja Foodi popcorn and have a pop pop pop kind of week.
