Crispy Chicken Karaage Air Fryer Recipe in Less Than 15 Minutes (2024)

FAQs

How do you crisp chicken in an air fryer? ›

Preheat the air fryer to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and let the fried chicken come to room temperature. Next, arrange the fried chicken in a single layer and cook it for about four minutes, flipping it once to ensure even cooking. Resist the urge to pile up fried chicken in the basket.

The usual suspect for the lack of browning on food is excess moisture. So if you pat it down or allow your meat to air dry in the fridge, that would help out. Although your air fryer is oil less, you do have brush on a bit of oil to promote browning.

An equal amount of all-purpose flour and cornstarch provides both structure and crunch to the batter. Cornstarch is a go-to ingredient for many fried foods (think crispy chicken wings), and using it to bolster the crisping power of flour resulted in a thinner, crispier, and sturdier (yet still delicate) breading.

For chicken karaage, it's essentially bite-size pieces of chicken thigh dusted with flour and deep-fried in hot oil. With tender and juicy marinated chicken coated in a crispy shell, karaage is a staple in Japanese home-cooked meals.

However, a small amount of oil is usually necessary to achieve a crispy texture. A drizzle or a quick oil spray is all you need for restaurant-quality fries and golden brown fried chicken, while other foods don't need any oil, like pizza or leftovers you might reheat.

After testing a variety of temperatures, I found that 375 degrees F is the best temperature for air frying chicken. Because the air fryer uses convection heat, you do not need to set it as high as you would an oven (in a regular oven, 425 degrees F is best for baking chicken, like Bacon Wrapped Chicken Breast).

Place half of the pieces in the basket of your air fryer. Try to ensure the pieces don't touch. Air needs to circulate around them. Spray the chicken pieces lightly with spray oil.

When mixed with the flour, the cornstarch makes the flour coating crispier and gives it that golden brown color! (It has to do with prevention of gluten development.) The baking powder reacts with the oil and creates tiny air bubbles, which also helps form a crispy coating.

Usually when deep frying, I dredge my chicken in beaten egg but I didn't want to clean up the drips from a wet batter in the air fryer. The cornstarch is enough to make the chicken crispy in the air fryer. It won't be a super thick crispy coating but it'll still be crispy!

Cornstarch – A bit of cornstarch really helps the air fryer do it's thing with our potato wedges. We get a perfect crunch without using too much oil. Seasoning Blend – I keep the seasoning pretty simple on these – paprika, garlic powder, salt, chili powder, etc.

What is the best oil for karaage frying? ›

It is dusted with corn starch, potato starch, rice flour, potato flour, or tapioca starch. The Japanese cooking style of Karaage cooking method means deep frying in hot oil. When making the deep-fried chicken in oil, it is best to use a high heat oil like peanut oil, or vegetable oil.

The reason why Japanese fried chicken known as karaage is so crispy is one the use of potato or cornstarch in place of flour as the breading, and two it is typically double or even tripled fried.

Note that karaage will not brown like American-style fried chicken, since potato starch doesn't darken as much as wheat flour. A tell-tale sign that the chicken is cooked through is when it becomes very firm when compared to its raw form.

Whether you're roasting it in the oven or cooking it in a skillet on the stove, you want to start with high heat to get a nice crust going. On the stove, get some oil hot enough that it's almost smoking in a skillet, then sear your chicken, skin-side-down until it's nice and crisp.

That trick is a sprinkling of baking powder, and it'll get you the crispiest, crackliest bites of fatty, salty skin imaginable, whether you're cooking just one thigh, a plate of wings, or an entire bird. Baking powder, it turns out, is good for quite a lot more than baking.

The air fryer allows you to cut out excess oil while retaining ultra-crispy skin or delicious caramelization on chicken cuts. It's fast: Compared to an oven, chicken cooks quite efficiently in the air fryer. Typically, you'll shave off about 30 percent to 40 percent of the cooking time by using an air fryer.