Frozen Chicken Legs in Air Fryer

Air fryer frozen chicken legs come out tender and juicy inside with crispy skin outside. If your family loves drumsticks for the dinner and our Frozen Chicken Legs Instant Pot was a hit, this one is even better!

If you didn’t think you could really cook frozen chicken legs in air fryer and have them come out delicious, you were wrong. I wasn’t so sure myself but thought I would give it a whirl so I could share my findings with you and what do you know, this easy air fryer recipe is a total winner for dinner.

You may have cooked legs already defrosted before, but we all have forgetful moments right? If you too realized that it is 4pm and your poultry is still rock hard, no worries. If you follow these directions, or our air fryer frozen chicken thighs instructions you’ll have a complete meal and nobody will know what happened.

Ninja Foodi Frozen Chicken Legs

You can use any brand you might have at home. I have three different models because I like to make sure there is no difference in temperatures or cook times. Use your AirWave, Cosori or make as a Ninja Foodi recipe. As for this one the only change is to use the lid that is attached.

Cooking frozen meat this way will work whether you bought these in the freezer section, or found them on sale and froze them yourself. The key to success is to separate them from one another. Typically you can run them under warm water and pull them apart. If not, just place the brick into the air fryer basket while it’s preheating and that will work too.

Ingredient Notes

You are going to want medium sized Chicken drumsticks frozen, skin on is ideal to keep them as moist and juicy as possible. I like organic free range but either way make sure they are the same size and separated from one another before cooking.

Olive oil spray is key to staying moist on the outside and getting crispy at the end

Seasonings of your choice, salt and pepper are a given but I’d suggest Lawry’s seasoned salt too for more flavor

Sauced

I mean you don’t have to brush barbecue sauce on at the end but if you do the skin will have a killer flavor. It will get kinda’ baked on and crispy too which kinda’ caramelizes and OMG I can taste it now so I better stop.

We have followed similar steps when making frozen chicken wings in air fryer as well. Total game changer when you have people over for the big game. 😉 You can make these and for the kids, frozen chicken tenders in air fryer are always a hit.

You can jump to recipe card at the bottom of this post but….. Here is a quick step by step so you can get the gist of what I mean. It isn’t difficult at all and you’ll be surprised at how it would be hard to tell the difference if you had fresh at the beginning vs. rock hard.

How Long to Cook Frozen Chicken Legs in Air Fryer

Do not preheat air fryer this time, instead I think in this case it was better to not. As the machine warms up it gives the meat an opportunity to thaw and defrost before cooking. Total cook time is 30 minutes flipping half way thru. If you want to add bbq sauce air fry this on during the last 5 minutes or so until crispy on the outside and internal temp reaches 165 degrees F.

You should always use a digital meat thermometer in the thickest part of the meat to ensure it is to the min. internal temperature. Timing will vary depending on the size of the chicken. I always suggest medium to begin with.

Only have an Instant Pot air fryer lid? NO problem. This is How to Cook Frozen Chicken all different ways. With this you just use the lid that sits on top of the pot and crisp the tops at 380 F for about 3 minutes on each side.

Just in case you made too many, we have a ton of leftover chicken recipes to choose from the next day. I hate wasting food so whether you make these naked drumsticks or air fryer turkey legs you can use the meat to make dinner the next night. That means two for one meals which saves $.